neulab/tldr huggingface dataset:
-wholename pattern See -path.  This alternative is less portable than -path.
-writable Matches files which are writable by the current user.  This takes into account access control lists and other permissions artefacts which the -perm test ignores.  This test makes use of the access(2) system call, and so can be fooled by NFS servers which do UID mapping (or root-squashing), since many systems implement access(2) in the client's kernel and so cannot make use of the UID mapping information held on the server.
-xtype c The same as -type unless the file is a symbolic link.  For symbolic links: if the -H or -P option was specified, true if the file is a link to a file of type c; if the -L option has been given, true if c is `l'.  In other words, for symbolic links, -xtype checks the type of the file that -type does not check.
-context pattern (SELinux only) Security context of the file matches glob pattern.
ACTIONS -delete Delete files; true if removal succeeded.  If the removal failed, an error message is issued.  If -delete fails, find's exit status will be nonzero (when it eventually exits).  Use of -delete automatically turns on the `-depth' option.
Warnings: Don't forget that the find command line is evaluated as an expression, so putting -delete first will make find try to delete everything below the starting points you specified.  When testing a find command line that you later intend to use with -delete, you should explicitly specify -depth in order to avoid later surprises.  Because -delete implies -depth, you cannot usefully use -prune and -delete together.
Together with the -ignore_readdir_race option, find will ignore errors of the -delete action in the case the file has disappeared since the parent directory was read: it will not output an error diagnostic, and the return code of the -delete action will be true.
-exec command ; Execute command; true if 0 status is returned.  All following arguments to find are taken to be arguments to the command until an argument consisting of `;' is encountered.  The string `{}' is replaced by the current file name being processed everywhere it occurs in the arguments to the command, not just in arguments where it is alone, as in some versions of find.  Both of these constructions might need to be escaped (with a `\') or quoted to protect them from expansion by the shell.  See the EXAMPLES section for examples of the use of the -exec option.  The specified command is run once for each matched file.  The command is executed in the starting directory.  There are unavoidable security problems surrounding use of the -exec action; you should use the -execdir option instead.
-exec command {} + This variant of the -exec action runs the specified command on the selected files, but the command line is built by appending each selected file name at the end; the total number of invocations of the command will be much less than the number of matched files. The command line is built in much the same way that xargs builds its command lines.  Only one instance of `{}' is allowed within the command, and it must appear at the end, immediately before the `+'; it needs to be escaped (with a `\') or quoted to protect it from interpretation by the shell.  The command is executed in the starting directory.  If any invocation with the `+' form returns a non-zero value as exit status, then find returns a non-zero exit status.  If find encounters an error, this can sometimes cause an immediate exit, so some pending commands may not be run at all. For this reason -exec my-command ... {} + -quit may not result in my-command actually being run.  This variant of -exec always returns true.
-execdir command ;
-execdir command {} + Like -exec, but the specified command is run from the subdirectory containing the matched file, which is not normally the directory in which you started find.  As with -exec, the {} should be quoted if find is being invoked from a shell.  This a much more secure method for invoking commands, as it avoids race conditions during resolution of the paths to the matched files.  As with the -exec action, the `+' form of -execdir will build a command line to process more than one matched file, but any given invocation of command will only list files that exist in the same subdirectory. If you use this option, you must ensure that your $PATH environment variable does not reference `.'; otherwise, an attacker can run any commands they like by leaving an appropriately-named file in a directory in which you will run -execdir.  The same applies to having entries in $PATH which are empty or which are not absolute directory names.  If any invocation with the `+' form returns a non-zero value as exit status, then find returns a non-zero exit status.  If find encounters an error, this can sometimes cause an immediate exit, so some pending commands may not be run at all.  The result of the action depends on whether the + or the ; variant is being used; -execdir command {} + always returns true, while -execdir command {} ; returns true only if command returns 0.
-fls file True; like -ls but write to file like -fprint.  The output file is always created, even if the predicate is never matched.  See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how unusual characters in filenames are handled.
-fprint file True; print the full file name into file file.  If file does not exist when find is run, it is created; if it does exist, it is truncated.  The file names /dev/stdout and /dev/stderr are handled specially; they refer to the standard output and standard error output, respectively.  The output file is always created, even if the predicate is never matched.  See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how unusual characters in filenames are handled.
-fprint0 file True; like -print0 but write to file like -fprint.  The output file is always created, even if the predicate is never matched. See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how unusual characters in filenames are handled.
-fprintf file format True; like -printf but write to file like -fprint.  The output file is always created, even if the predicate is never matched. See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how unusual characters in filenames are handled.
-ls    True; list current file in ls -dils format on standard output. The block counts are of 1 KB blocks, unless the environment variable POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, in which case 512-byte blocks are used.  See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how unusual characters in filenames are handled.
-ok command ; Like -exec but ask the user first.  If the user agrees, run the command.  Otherwise just return false.  If the command is run, its standard input is redirected from /dev/null.
The response to the prompt is matched against a pair of regular expressions to determine if it is an affirmative or negative response.  This regular expression is obtained from the system if the `POSIXLY_CORRECT' environment variable is set, or otherwise from find's message translations.  If the system has no suitable definition, find's own definition will be used.  In either case, the interpretation of the regular expression itself will be affected by the environment variables 'LC_CTYPE' (character classes) and 'LC_COLLATE' (character ranges and equivalence classes).
-okdir command ; Like -execdir but ask the user first in the same way as for -ok. If the user does not agree, just return false.  If the command is run, its standard input is redirected from /dev/null.
-print True; print the full file name on the standard output, followed by a newline.  If you are piping the output of find into another program and there is the faintest possibility that the files which you are searching for might contain a newline, then you should seriously consider using the -print0 option instead of -print. See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how unusual characters in filenames are handled.
-print0 True; print the full file name on the standard output, followed by a null character (instead of the newline character that -print uses).  This allows file names that contain newlines or other types of white space to be correctly interpreted by programs that process the find output.  This option corresponds to the -0 option of xargs.
-printf format True; print format on the standard output, interpreting `\' escapes and `%' directives.  Field widths and precisions can be specified as with the printf(3) C function.  Please note that many of the fields are printed as %s rather than %d, and this may mean that flags don't work as you might expect.  This also means that the `-' flag does work (it forces fields to be left-aligned). Unlike -print, -printf does not add a newline at the end of the string.  The escapes and directives are:
\a     Alarm bell.
\b     Backspace.
\c     Stop printing from this format immediately and flush the output.
\f     Form feed.
\n     Newline.
\r     Carriage return.
\t     Horizontal tab.
\v     Vertical tab.
\0     ASCII NUL.
\\     A literal backslash (`\').
\NNN   The character whose ASCII code is NNN (octal).
A `\' character followed by any other character is treated as an ordinary character, so they both are printed.
%%     A literal percent sign.
%a     File's last access time in the format returned by the C ctime(3) function.
%Ak    File's last access time in the format specified by k, which is either `@' or a directive for the C strftime(3) function.  The following shows an incomplete list of possible values for k.  Please refer to the documentation of strftime(3) for the full list.  Some of the conversion specification characters might not be available on all systems, due to differences in the implementation of the strftime(3) library function.
@      seconds since Jan. 1, 1970, 00:00 GMT, with fractional part.
Time fields:
H      hour (00..23)
I      hour (01..12)
k      hour ( 0..23)
l      hour ( 1..12)
M      minute (00..59)
p      locale's AM or PM
r      time, 12-hour (hh:mm:ss [AP]M)
S      Second (00.00 .. 61.00).  There is a fractional part.
T      time, 24-hour (hh:mm:ss.xxxxxxxxxx)
+      Date and time, separated by `+', for example `2004-04-28+22:22:05.0'.  This is a GNU extension. The time is given in the current timezone (which may be affected by setting the TZ environment variable). The seconds field includes a fractional part.
X      locale's time representation (H:M:S).  The seconds field includes a fractional part.
Z      time zone (e.g., EDT), or nothing if no time zone is determinable
Date fields:
a      locale's abbreviated weekday name (Sun..Sat)
A      locale's full weekday name, variable length (Sunday..Saturday)
b      locale's abbreviated month name (Jan..Dec)
B      locale's full month name, variable length (January..December)
c      locale's date and time (Sat Nov 04 12:02:33 EST 1989).  The format is the same as for ctime(3) and so to preserve compatibility with that format, there is no fractional part in the seconds field.
d      day of month (01..31)
D      date (mm/dd/yy)
F      date (yyyy-mm-dd)
h      same as b
j      day of year (001..366)
m      month (01..12)
U      week number of year with Sunday as first day of week (00..53)
w      day of week (0..6)
W      week number of year with Monday as first day of week (00..53)
x      locale's date representation (mm/dd/yy)
y      last two digits of year (00..99)
Y      year (1970...)
%b     The amount of disk space used for this file in 512-byte blocks.  Since disk space is allocated in multiples of the filesystem block size this is usually greater than %s/512, but it can also be smaller if the file is a sparse file.
%c     File's last status change time in the format returned by the C ctime(3) function.
%Ck    File's last status change time in the format specified by k, which is the same as for %A.
%d     File's depth in the directory tree; 0 means the file is a starting-point.
%D     The device number on which the file exists (the st_dev field of struct stat), in decimal.
%f     Print the basename; the file's name with any leading directories removed (only the last element).  For /, the result is `/'.  See the EXAMPLES section for an example.
%F     Type of the filesystem the file is on; this value can be used for -fstype.
%g     File's group name, or numeric group ID if the group has no name.
%G     File's numeric group ID.
%h     Dirname; the Leading directories of the file's name (all but the last element).  If the file name contains no slashes (since it is in the current directory) the %h specifier expands to `.'.  For files which are themselves directories and contain a slash (including /), %h expands to the empty string.  See the EXAMPLES section for an example.
%H     Starting-point under which file was found.
%i     File's inode number (in decimal).
%k     The amount of disk space used for this file in 1 KB blocks. Since disk space is allocated in multiples of the filesystem block size this is usually greater than %s/1024, but it can also be smaller if the file is a sparse file.
%l     Object of symbolic link (empty string if file is not a symbolic link).
%m     File's permission bits (in octal).  This option uses the `traditional' numbers which most Unix implementations use, but if your particular implementation uses an unusual ordering of octal permissions bits, you will see a difference between the actual value of the file's mode and the output of %m.  Normally you will want to have a leading zero on this number, and to do this, you should use the # flag (as in, for example, `%#m').
%M     File's permissions (in symbolic form, as for ls).  This directive is supported in findutils 4.2.5 and later.
%n     Number of hard links to file.
%p     File's name.
%P     File's name with the name of the starting-point under which it was found removed.
%s     File's size in bytes.
%S     File's sparseness.  This is calculated as (BLOCKSIZE*st_blocks / st_size).  The exact value you will get for an ordinary file of a certain length is system- dependent.  However, normally sparse files will have values less than 1.0, and files which use indirect blocks may have a value which is greater than 1.0.  In general the number of blocks used by a file is file system dependent.  The value used for BLOCKSIZE is system-dependent, but is usually 512 bytes.  If the file size is zero, the value printed is undefined.  On systems which lack support for st_blocks, a file's sparseness is assumed to be 1.0.
%t     File's last modification time in the format returned by the C ctime(3) function.
%Tk    File's last modification time in the format specified by k, which is the same as for %A.
%u     File's user name, or numeric user ID if the user has no name.
%U     File's numeric user ID.
%y     File's type (like in ls -l), U=unknown type (shouldn't happen)
%Y     File's type (like %y), plus follow symbolic links: `L'=loop, `N'=nonexistent, `?' for any other error when determining the type of the target of a symbolic link.
%Z     (SELinux only) file's security context.
%{ %[ %( Reserved for future use.
A `%' character followed by any other character is discarded, but the other character is printed (don't rely on this, as further format characters may be introduced).  A `%' at the end of the format argument causes undefined behaviour since there is no following character.  In some locales, it may hide your door keys, while in others it may remove the final page from the novel you are reading.
The %m and %d directives support the #, 0 and + flags, but the other directives do not, even if they print numbers.  Numeric directives that do not support these flags include G, U, b, D, k and n.  The `-' format flag is supported and changes the alignment of a field from right-justified (which is the default) to left- justified.
See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how unusual characters in filenames are handled.
-prune True; if the file is a directory, do not descend into it.  If -depth is given, then -prune has no effect.  Because -delete implies -depth, you cannot usefully use -prune and -delete together.  For example, to skip the directory src/emacs and all files and directories under it, and print the names of the other files found, do something like this: find . -path ./src/emacs -prune -o -print
-quit  Exit immediately (with return value zero if no errors have occurred).  This is different to -prune because -prune only applies to the contents of pruned directories, while -quit simply makes find stop immediately.  No child processes will be left running.  Any command lines which have been built by -exec ... + or -execdir ... + are invoked before the program is exited.  After -quit is executed, no more files specified on the command line will be processed.  For example, `find /tmp/foo /tmp/bar -print -quit` will print only `/tmp/foo`. One common use of -quit is to stop searching the file system once we have found what we want.  For example, if we want to find just a single file we can do this: find / -name needle -print -quit
OPERATORS Listed in order of decreasing precedence:
( expr ) Force precedence.  Since parentheses are special to the shell, you will normally need to quote them.  Many of the examples in this manual page use backslashes for this purpose: `\(...\)' instead of `(...)'.
! expr True if expr is false.  This character will also usually need protection from interpretation by the shell.
-not expr Same as ! expr, but not POSIX compliant.
expr1 expr2 Two expressions in a row are taken to be joined with an implied -a; expr2 is not evaluated if expr1 is false.
expr1 -a expr2 Same as expr1 expr2.
expr1 -and expr2 Same as expr1 expr2, but not POSIX compliant.
expr1 -o expr2 Or; expr2 is not evaluated if expr1 is true.
expr1 -or expr2 Same as expr1 -o expr2, but not POSIX compliant.
expr1 , expr2 List; both expr1 and expr2 are always evaluated.  The value of expr1 is discarded; the value of the list is the value of expr2. The comma operator can be useful for searching for several different types of thing, but traversing the filesystem hierarchy only once.  The -fprintf action can be used to list the various matched items into several different output files.
Please note that -a when specified implicitly (for example by two tests appearing without an explicit operator between them) or explicitly has higher precedence than -o.  This means that find . -name afile -o -name bfile -print will never print afile.
Many of the actions of find result in the printing of data which is under the control of other users.  This includes file names, sizes, modification times and so forth.  File names are a potential problem since they can contain any character except `\0' and `/'.  Unusual characters in file names can do unexpected and often undesirable things to your terminal (for example, changing the settings of your function keys on some terminals).  Unusual characters are handled differently by various actions, as described below.
-print0, -fprint0 Always print the exact filename, unchanged, even if the output is going to a terminal.
-ls, -fls Unusual characters are always escaped.  White space, backslash, and double quote characters are printed using C-style escaping (for example `\f', `\"').  Other unusual characters are printed using an octal escape.  Other printable characters (for -ls and -fls these are the characters between octal 041 and 0176) are printed as-is.
-printf, -fprintf If the output is not going to a terminal, it is printed as-is. Otherwise, the result depends on which directive is in use.  The directives %D, %F, %g, %G, %H, %Y, and %y expand to values which are not under control of files' owners, and so are printed as-is. The directives %a, %b, %c, %d, %i, %k, %m, %M, %n, %s, %t, %u and %U have values which are under the control of files' owners but which cannot be used to send arbitrary data to the terminal, and so these are printed as-is.  The directives %f, %h, %l, %p and %P are quoted.  This quoting is performed in the same way as for GNU ls.  This is not the same quoting mechanism as the one used for -ls and -fls.  If you are able to decide what format to use for the output of find then it is normally better to use `\0' as a terminator than to use newline, as file names can contain white space and newline characters.  The setting of the `LC_CTYPE' environment variable is used to determine which characters need to be quoted.
-print, -fprint Quoting is handled in the same way as for -printf and -fprintf. If you are using find in a script or in a situation where the matched files might have arbitrary names, you should consider using -print0 instead of -print.
The -ok and -okdir actions print the current filename as-is.  This may change in a future release.
For closest compliance to the POSIX standard, you should set the POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable.  The following options are specified in the POSIX standard (IEEE Std 1003.1-2008, 2016 Edition):
-H     This option is supported.
-L     This option is supported.
-name  This option is supported, but POSIX conformance depends on the POSIX conformance of the system's fnmatch(3) library function.  As of findutils-4.2.2, shell metacharacters (`*', `?' or `[]' for example) match a leading `.', because IEEE PASC interpretation 126 requires this.  This is a change from previous versions of findutils.
-type  Supported.  POSIX specifies `b', `c', `d', `l', `p', `f' and `s'. GNU find also supports `D', representing a Door, where the OS provides these.  Furthermore, GNU find allows multiple types to be specified at once in a comma-separated list.
-ok    Supported.  Interpretation of the response is according to the `yes' and `no' patterns selected by setting the `LC_MESSAGES' environment variable.  When the `POSIXLY_CORRECT' environment variable is set, these patterns are taken system's definition of a positive (yes) or negative (no) response.  See the system's documentation for nl_langinfo(3), in particular YESEXPR and NOEXPR.  When `POSIXLY_CORRECT' is not set, the patterns are instead taken from find's own message catalogue.
-newer Supported.  If the file specified is a symbolic link, it is always dereferenced.  This is a change from previous behaviour, which used to take the relevant time from the symbolic link; see the HISTORY section below.
-perm  Supported.  If the POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable is not set, some mode arguments (for example +a+x) which are not valid in POSIX are supported for backward-compatibility.
Other primaries The primaries -atime, -ctime, -depth, -exec, -group, -links, -mtime, -nogroup, -nouser, -ok, -path, -print, -prune, -size, -user and -xdev are all supported.
The POSIX standard specifies parentheses `(', `)', negation `!' and the logical AND/OR operators -a and -o.
All other options, predicates, expressions and so forth are extensions beyond the POSIX standard.  Many of these extensions are not unique to GNU find, however.
The POSIX standard requires that find detects loops:
The find utility shall detect infinite loops; that is, entering a previously visited directory that is an ancestor of the last file encountered.  When it detects an infinite loop, find shall write a diagnostic message to standard error and shall either recover its position in the hierarchy or terminate.
GNU find complies with these requirements.  The link count of directories which contain entries which are hard links to an ancestor will often be lower than they otherwise should be.  This can mean that GNU find will sometimes optimise away the visiting of a subdirectory which is actually a link to an ancestor.  Since find does not actually enter such a subdirectory, it is allowed to avoid emitting a diagnostic message. Although this behaviour may be somewhat confusing, it is unlikely that anybody actually depends on this behaviour.  If the leaf optimisation has been turned off with -noleaf, the directory entry will always be examined and the diagnostic message will be issued where it is appropriate. Symbolic links cannot be used to create filesystem cycles as such, but if the -L option or the -follow option is in use, a diagnostic message is issued when find encounters a loop of symbolic links.  As with loops containing hard links, the leaf optimisation will often mean that find knows that it doesn't need to call stat() or chdir() on the symbolic link, so this diagnostic is frequently not necessary.
The -d option is supported for compatibility with various BSD systems, but you should use the POSIX-compliant option -depth instead.
The POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable does not affect the behaviour of the -regex or -iregex tests because those tests aren't specified in the POSIX standard.
LANG   Provides a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or null.
LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the other internationalization variables.
LC_COLLATE The POSIX standard specifies that this variable affects the pattern matching to be used for the -name option.  GNU find uses the fnmatch(3) library function, and so support for `LC_COLLATE' depends on the system library.  This variable also affects the interpretation of the response to -ok; while the `LC_MESSAGES' variable selects the actual pattern used to interpret the response to -ok, the interpretation of any bracket expressions in the pattern will be affected by `LC_COLLATE'.
LC_CTYPE This variable affects the treatment of character classes used in regular expressions and also with the -name test, if the system's fnmatch(3) library function supports this.  This variable also affects the interpretation of any character classes in the regular expressions used to interpret the response to the prompt issued by -ok.  The `LC_CTYPE' environment variable will also affect which characters are considered to be unprintable when filenames are printed; see the section UNUSUAL FILENAMES.
LC_MESSAGES Determines the locale to be used for internationalised messages. If the `POSIXLY_CORRECT' environment variable is set, this also determines the interpretation of the response to the prompt made by the -ok action.
NLSPATH Determines the location of the internationalisation message catalogues.
PATH   Affects the directories which are searched to find the executables invoked by -exec, -execdir, -ok and -okdir.
POSIXLY_CORRECT Determines the block size used by -ls and -fls.  If POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, blocks are units of 512 bytes.  Otherwise they are units of 1024 bytes.
Setting this variable also turns off warning messages (that is, implies -nowarn) by default, because POSIX requires that apart from the output for -ok, all messages printed on stderr are diagnostics and must result in a non-zero exit status.
When POSIXLY_CORRECT is not set, -perm +zzz is treated just like -perm /zzz if +zzz is not a valid symbolic mode.  When POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, such constructs are treated as an error.
When POSIXLY_CORRECT is set, the response to the prompt made by the -ok action is interpreted according to the system's message catalogue, as opposed to according to find's own message translations.
TZ     Affects the time zone used for some of the time-related format directives of -printf and -fprintf.
Simple `find|xargs` approach •      Find files named core in or below the directory /tmp and delete them.
$ find /tmp -name core -type f -print | xargs /bin/rm -f
Note that this will work incorrectly if there are any filenames containing newlines, single or double quotes, or spaces.
Safer `find -print0 | xargs -0` approach •      Find files named core in or below the directory /tmp and delete them, processing filenames in such a way that file or directory names containing single or double quotes, spaces or newlines are correctly handled.
$ find /tmp -name core -type f -print0 | xargs -0 /bin/rm -f
The -name test comes before the -type test in order to avoid having to call stat(2) on every file.
Note that there is still a race between the time find traverses the hierarchy printing the matching filenames, and the time the process executed by xargs works with that file.
Executing a command for each file •      Run file on every file in or below the current directory.
$ find . -type f -exec file '{}' \;
Notice that the braces are enclosed in single quote marks to protect them from interpretation as shell script punctuation.  The semicolon is similarly protected by the use of a backslash, though single quotes could have been used in that case also.
In many cases, one might prefer the `-exec ... +` or better the `-execdir ... +` syntax for performance and security reasons.
Traversing the filesystem just once - for 2 different actions •      Traverse the filesystem just once, listing set-user-ID files and directories into /root/suid.txt and large files into /root/big.txt.
$ find / \ \( -perm -4000 -fprintf /root/suid.txt '%#m %u %p\n' \) , \ \( -size +100M -fprintf /root/big.txt '%-10s %p\n' \)
This example uses the line-continuation character '\' on the first two lines to instruct the shell to continue reading the command on the next line.
Searching files by age •      Search for files in your home directory which have been modified in the last twenty-four hours.
$ find $HOME -mtime 0
This command works this way because the time since each file was last modified is divided by 24 hours and any remainder is discarded.  That means that to match -mtime 0, a file will have to have a modification in the past which is less than 24 hours ago.
Searching files by permissions •      Search for files which are executable but not readable.
$ find /sbin /usr/sbin -executable \! -readable -print
•      Search for files which have read and write permission for their owner, and group, but which other users can read but not write to.
$ find . -perm 664
Files which meet these criteria but have other permissions bits set (for example if someone can execute the file) will not be matched.
•      Search for files which have read and write permission for their owner and group, and which other users can read, without regard to the presence of any extra permission bits (for example the executable bit).
$ find . -perm -664
This will match a file which has mode 0777, for example.
•      Search for files which are writable by somebody (their owner, or their group, or anybody else).
$ find . -perm /222
•      Search for files which are writable by either their owner or their group.
$ find . -perm /220 $ find . -perm /u+w,g+w $ find . -perm /u=w,g=w
All three of these commands do the same thing, but the first one uses the octal representation of the file mode, and the other two use the symbolic form.  The files don't have to be writable by both the owner and group to be matched; either will do.
•      Search for files which are writable by both their owner and their group.
$ find . -perm -220 $ find . -perm -g+w,u+w
Both these commands do the same thing.
•      A more elaborate search on permissions.
$ find . -perm -444 -perm /222 \! -perm /111 $ find . -perm -a+r -perm /a+w \! -perm /a+x
These two commands both search for files that are readable for everybody (-perm -444 or -perm -a+r), have at least one write bit set (-perm /222 or -perm /a+w) but are not executable for anybody (! -perm /111 or ! -perm /a+x respectively).
Pruning - omitting files and subdirectories •      Copy the contents of /source-dir to /dest-dir, but omit files and directories named .snapshot (and anything in them).  It also omits files or directories whose name ends in '~', but not their contents.
$ cd /source-dir $ find . -name .snapshot -prune -o \( \! -name '*~' -print0 \) \ | cpio -pmd0 /dest-dir
The construct -prune -o \( ... -print0 \) is quite common.  The idea here is that the expression before -prune matches things which are to be pruned.  However, the -prune action itself returns true, so the following -o ensures that the right hand side is evaluated only for those directories which didn't get pruned (the contents of the pruned directories are not even visited, so their contents are irrelevant).  The expression on the right hand side of the -o is in parentheses only for clarity.  It emphasises that the -print0 action takes place only for things that didn't have -prune applied to them.  Because the default `and' condition between tests binds more tightly than -o, this is the default anyway, but the parentheses help to show what is going on.
•      Given the following directory of projects and their associated SCM administrative directories, perform an efficient search for the projects' roots:
$ find repo/ \ \( -exec test -d '{}/.svn' \; \ -or -exec test -d '{}/.git' \; \ -or -exec test -d '{}/CVS' \; \ \) -print -prune
repo/project1/CVS repo/gnu/project2/.svn repo/gnu/project3/.svn repo/gnu/project3/src/.svn repo/project4/.git
In this example, -prune prevents unnecessary descent into directories that have already been discovered (for example we do not search project3/src because we already found project3/.svn), but ensures sibling directories (project2 and project3) are found.
Other useful examples •      Search for several file types.
$ find /tmp -type f,d,l
Search for files, directories, and symbolic links in the directory /tmp passing these types as a comma-separated list (GNU extension), which is otherwise equivalent to the longer, yet more portable:
$ find /tmp \( -type f -o -type d -o -type l \)
•      Search for files with the particular name needle and stop immediately when we find the first one.
$ find / -name needle -print -quit
•      Demonstrate the interpretation of the %f and %h format directives of the -printf action for some corner-cases.  Here is an example including some output.
$ find . .. / /tmp /tmp/TRACE compile compile/64/tests/find -maxdepth 0 -printf '[%h][%f]\n' [.][.] [.][..] [][/] [][tmp] [/tmp][TRACE] [.][compile] [compile/64/tests][find]
find exits with status 0 if all files are processed successfully, greater than 0 if errors occur.  This is deliberately a very broad description, but if the return value is non-zero, you should not rely on the correctness of the results of find.
When some error occurs, find may stop immediately, without completing all the actions specified.  For example, some starting points may not have been examined or some pending program invocations for -exec ... {} + or -execdir ... {} + may not have been performed.
As of findutils-4.2.2, shell metacharacters (`*', `?' or `[]' for example) used in filename patterns match a leading `.', because IEEE POSIX interpretation 126 requires this.
As of findutils-4.3.3, -perm /000 now matches all files instead of none.
Nanosecond-resolution timestamps were implemented in findutils-4.3.3.
As of findutils-4.3.11, the -delete action sets find's exit status to a nonzero value when it fails.  However, find will not exit immediately. Previously, find's exit status was unaffected by the failure of -delete.
Feature                Added in   Also occurs in -newerXY               4.3.3      BSD -D                     4.3.1 -O                     4.3.1 -readable              4.3.0 -writable              4.3.0 -executable            4.3.0 -regextype             4.2.24 -exec ... +            4.2.12     POSIX -execdir               4.2.12     BSD -okdir                 4.2.12 -samefile              4.2.11 -H                     4.2.5      POSIX -L                     4.2.5      POSIX -P                     4.2.5      BSD -delete                4.2.3 -quit                  4.2.3 -d                     4.2.3      BSD -wholename             4.2.0 -iwholename            4.2.0 -ignore_readdir_race   4.2.0 -fls                   4.0 -ilname                3.8 -iname                 3.8 -ipath                 3.8 -iregex                3.8
The syntax -perm +MODE was removed in findutils-4.5.12, in favour of -perm /MODE.  The +MODE syntax had been deprecated since findutils-4.2.21 which was released in 2005.
NON-BUGS Operator precedence surprises The command find . -name afile -o -name bfile -print will never print afile because this is actually equivalent to find . -name afile -o \( -name bfile -a -print \).  Remember that the precedence of -a is higher than that of -o and when there is no operator specified between tests, -a is assumed.
“paths must precede expression” error message $ find . -name *.c -print find: paths must precede expression find: possible unquoted pattern after predicate `-name'?
This happens when the shell could expand the pattern *.c to more than one file name existing in the current directory, and passing the resulting file names in the command line to find like this: find . -name frcode.c locate.c word_io.c -print That command is of course not going to work, because the -name predicate allows exactly only one pattern as argument.  Instead of doing things this way, you should enclose the pattern in quotes or escape the wildcard, thus allowing find to use the pattern with the wildcard during the search for file name matching instead of file names expanded by the parent shell: $ find . -name '*.c' -print $ find . -name \*.c -print
There are security problems inherent in the behaviour that the POSIX standard specifies for find, which therefore cannot be fixed.  For example, the -exec action is inherently insecure, and -execdir should be used instead.
The environment variable LC_COLLATE has no effect on the -ok action.
Copyright © 1990-2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc.  License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.  There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
chmod(1), locate(1), ls(1), updatedb(1), xargs(1), lstat(2), stat(2), ctime(3) fnmatch(3), printf(3), strftime(3), locatedb(5), regex(7)
Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/findutils/find> or available locally via: info find
quilt(1)                     General Commands Manual                    quilt(1)
quilt - tool to manage series of patches
quilt [-h] command [options]
Quilt is a tool to manage large sets of patches by keeping track of the changes each patch makes. Patches can be applied, un-applied, refreshed, etc. The key philosophical concept is that your primary output is patches.
With quilt, all work occurs within a single directory tree. Commands can be invoked from anywhere within the source tree. They are of the form quilt cmd similar to CVS, svn or git commands. They can be abbreviated as long as the specified part of the command is unique. All commands print some help text with quilt cmd -h.
Quilt manages a stack of patches. Patches are applied incrementally on top of the base tree plus all preceding patches. They can be pushed on top of the stack (quilt push), and popped off the stack (quilt pop). Commands are available for querying the contents of the series file (quilt series, see below), the contents of the stack (quilt applied, quilt previous, quilt top), and the patches that are not applied at a particular moment (quilt next, quilt unapplied).  By default, most commands apply to the topmost patch on the stack.
Patch files are located in the patches sub-directory of the source tree (see EXAMPLE OF WORKING TREE below). The QUILT_PATCHES environment variable can be used to override this location. When not found in the current directory, that subdirectory is searched recursively in the parent directories (this is similar to the way git searches for its configuration files). The patches directory may contain sub-directories. It may also be a symbolic link instead of a directory.
A file called series contains a list of patch file names that defines the order in which patches are applied. Unless there are means by which series files can be generated automatically, it is usually provided along with a set of patches. In this file, each patch file name is on a separate line. Patch files are identified by path names that are relative to the patches directory; patches may be in sub-directories below this directory. Lines in the series file that start with a hash character (#) are ignored.  You can also add a comment after each patch file name, introduced by a space  followed by a hash character. When quilt adds, removes, or renames patches, it automatically updates the series file. Users of quilt can modify series files while some patches are applied, as long as the applied patches remain in their original order.
Different series files can be used to assemble patches in different ways, corresponding for example to different development branches.
Before a patch is applied (or ``pushed on the stack''), copies of all files the patch modifies are saved to the .pc/patch directory. The patch is added to the list of currently applied patches (.pc/applied-patches). Later when a patch is regenerated (quilt refresh), the backup copies in .pc/patch are compared with the current versions of the files in the source tree using GNU diff.
Documentation related to a patch can be put at the beginning of a patch file.  Quilt is careful to preserve all text that precedes the actual patch when doing a refresh. (This is limited to patches in unified format; see diff documentation).
The series file is looked up in the .pc directory, in the root of the source tree, and in the patches directory.  The first series file that is found is used. This may also be a symbolic link, or a file with multiple hard links.  Usually, only one series file is used for a set of patches, so the patches sub-directory is a convenient location.
The .pc directory and its sub-directories cannot be relocated, but it can be a symbolic link. While patches are applied to the source tree, this directory is essential for many operations, including taking patches off the stack (quilt pop), and refreshing patches (quilt refresh).  Files in the .pc directory are automatically removed when they are no longer needed, so there is no need to clean up manually.
add [-P patch] {file} ...
Add one or more files to the topmost or named patch.  Files must be added to the patch before being modified.  Files that are modified by patches already applied on top of the specified patch cannot be added.
-P patch
Patch to add files to.
annotate [-P patch] {file}
Print an annotated listing of the specified file showing which patches modify which lines. Only applied patches are included.
Stop checking for changes at the specified rather than the topmost patch.
applied [patch]
Print a list of applied patches, or all patches up to and including the specified patch in the file series.
delete [-r] [--backup] [patch|-n]
Remove the specified or topmost patch from the series file.  If the patch is applied, quilt will attempt to remove it first. (Only the topmost patch can be removed right now.)
-n  Delete the next patch after topmost, rather than the specified or topmost patch.
-r  Remove the deleted patch file from the patches directory as well.
Rename the patch file to patch~ rather than deleting it.  Ignored if not used with `-r'.
diff [-p n|-p ab] [-u|-U num|-c|-C num] [--combine patch|-z] [-R] [-P patch] [--snapshot] [--diff=utility] [--no-timestamps] [--no-index] [--sort] [--color[=always|auto|never]] [file ...]
Produces a diff of the specified file(s) in the topmost or specified patch.  If no files are specified, all files that are modified are included.
-p n Create a -p n style patch (-p0 or -p1 are supported).
-p ab Create a -p1 style patch, but use a/file and b/file as the original and new filenames instead of the default dir.orig/file and dir/file names.
-u, -U num, -c, -C num
Create a unified diff (-u, -U) with num lines of context. Create a context diff (-c, -C) with num lines of context. The number of context lines defaults to 3.
--no-timestamps
Do not include file timestamps in patch headers.
--no-index
Do not output Index: lines.
-z  Write to standard output the changes that have been made relative to the topmost or specified patch.
-R  Create a reverse diff.
Create a diff for the specified patch.  (Defaults to the topmost patch.)
--combine patch
Create a combined diff for all patches between this patch and the patch specified with -P. A patch name of `-' is equivalent to specifying the first applied patch.
--snapshot
Diff against snapshot (see `quilt snapshot -h').
--diff=utility
Use the specified utility for generating the diff. The utility is invoked with the original and new file name as arguments.
--color[=always|auto|never]
Use syntax coloring (auto activates it only if the output is a tty).
--sort Sort files by their name instead of preserving the original order.
edit file ...
Edit the specified file(s) in $EDITOR after adding it (them) to the topmost patch.
files [-v] [-a] [-l] [--combine patch] [patch]
Print the list of files that the topmost or specified patch changes.
-a  List all files in all applied patches.
-l  Add patch name to output.
-v  Verbose, more user friendly output.
Create a listing for all patches between this patch and the topmost or specified patch. A patch name of `-' is equivalent to specifying the first applied patch.
fold [-R] [-q] [-f] [-p strip-level]
Integrate the patch read from standard input into the topmost patch: After making sure that all files modified are part of the topmost patch, the patch is applied with the specified strip level (which defaults to 1).
-R  Apply patch in reverse.
-q  Quiet operation.
-f  Force apply, even if the patch has rejects. Unless in quiet mode, apply the patch interactively: the patch utility may ask questions.
-p strip-level
The number of pathname components to strip from file names when applying patchfile.
fork [new_name]
Fork the topmost patch.  Forking a patch means creating a verbatim copy of it under a new name, and use that new name instead of the original one in the current series.  This is useful when a patch has to be modified, but the original version of it should be preserved, e.g.  because it is used in another series, or for the history.  A typical sequence of commands would be: fork, edit, refresh.
If new_name is missing, the name of the forked patch will be the current patch name, followed by `-2'.  If the patch name already ends in a dash-and-number, the number is further incremented (e.g., patch.diff, patch-2.diff, patch-3.diff).
graph [--all] [--reduce] [--lines[=num]] [--edge-labels=files] [-T ps] [patch]
Generate a dot(1) directed graph showing the dependencies between applied patches. A patch depends on another patch if both touch the same file or, with the --lines option, if their modifications overlap. Unless otherwise specified, the graph includes all patches that the topmost patch depends on.  When a patch name is specified, instead of the topmost patch, create a graph for the specified patch. The graph will include all other patches that this patch depends on, as well as all patches that depend on this patch.
--all Generate a graph including all applied patches and their dependencies. (Unapplied patches are not included.)
--reduce
Eliminate transitive edges from the graph.
--lines[=num]
Compute dependencies by looking at the lines the patches modify. Unless a different num is specified, two lines of context are included.
--edge-labels=files
Label graph edges with the file names that the adjacent patches modify.
-T ps Directly produce a PostScript output file.
grep [-h|options] {pattern}
Grep through the source files, recursively, skipping patches and quilt meta-information. If no filename argument is given, the whole source tree is searched. Please see the grep(1) manual page for options.
-h  Print this help. The grep -h option can be passed after a double- dash (--). Search expressions that start with a dash can be passed after a second double-dash (-- --).
header [-a|-r|-e] [--backup] [--strip-diffstat] [--strip-trailing- whitespace] [patch]
Print or change the header of the topmost or specified patch.
-a, -r, -e
Append to (-a) or replace (-r) the exiting patch header, or edit (-e) the header in $EDITOR. If none of these options is given, print the patch header.
--strip-diffstat
Strip diffstat output from the header.
--strip-trailing-whitespace
Strip trailing whitespace at the end of lines of the header.
Create a backup copy of the old version of a patch as patch~.
import [-p num] [-R] [-P patch] [-f] [-d {o|a|n}] patchfile ...
Import external patches.  The patches will be inserted following the current top patch, and must be pushed after import to apply them.
-p num
Number of directory levels to strip when applying (default=1)
Apply patch in reverse.
Patch filename to use inside quilt. This option can only be used when importing a single patch.
-f  Overwrite/update existing patches.
-d {o|a|n}
When overwriting in existing patch, keep the old (o), all (a), or new (n) patch header. If both patches include headers, this option must be specified. This option is only effective when -f is used.