find(1)                     General Commands Manual                    find(1)

NAME

       find - search for files in a directory hierarchy

SYNOPSIS

       find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-D debugopts] [-Olevel] [starting-point...]
       [expression]

DESCRIPTION

       This manual page documents the GNU version of find.  GNU find searches
       the directory tree rooted at each given starting-point by evaluating
       the given expression from left to right, according to the rules of
       precedence (see section OPERATORS), until the outcome is known (the
       left hand side is false for and operations, true for or), at which
       point find moves on to the next file name.  If no starting-point is
       specified, `.' is assumed.

       If you are using find in an environment where security is important
       (for example if you are using it to search directories that are
       writable by other users), you should read the `Security Considerations'
       chapter of the findutils documentation, which is called Finding Files
       and comes with findutils.  That document also includes a lot more
       detail and discussion than this manual page, so you may find it a more
       useful source of information.

OPTIONS

       The -H, -L and -P options control the treatment of symbolic links.
       Command-line arguments following these are taken to be names of files
       or directories to be examined, up to the first argument that begins
       with `-', or the argument `(' or `!'.  That argument and any following
       arguments are taken to be the expression describing what is to be
       searched for.  If no paths are given, the current directory is used.
       If no expression is given, the expression -print is used (but you
       should probably consider using -print0 instead, anyway).

       This manual page talks about `options' within the expression list.
       These options control the behaviour of find but are specified
       immediately after the last path name.  The five `real' options -H, -L,
       -P, -D and -O must appear before the first path name, if at all.  A
       double dash -- could theoretically be used to signal that any remaining
       arguments are not options, but this does not really work due to the way
       find determines the end of the following path arguments: it does that
       by reading until an expression argument comes (which also starts with a
       `-').  Now, if a path argument would start with a `-', then find would
       treat it as expression argument instead.  Thus, to ensure that all
       start points are taken as such, and especially to prevent that wildcard
       patterns expanded by the calling shell are not mistakenly treated as
       expression arguments, it is generally safer to prefix wildcards or
       dubious path names with either `./' or to use absolute path names
       starting with '/'.  Alternatively, it is generally safe though non-
       portable to use the GNU option -files0-from to pass arbitrary starting
       points to find.


       -P     Never follow symbolic links.  This is the default behaviour.
              When find examines or prints information about files, and the
              file is a symbolic link, the information used shall be taken
              from the properties of the symbolic link itself.


       -L     Follow symbolic links.  When find examines or prints information
              about files, the information used shall be taken from the
              properties of the file to which the link points, not from the
              link itself (unless it is a broken symbolic link or find is
              unable to examine the file to which the link points).  Use of
              this option implies -noleaf.  If you later use the -P option,
              -noleaf will still be in effect.  If -L is in effect and find
              discovers a symbolic link to a subdirectory during its search,
              the subdirectory pointed to by the symbolic link will be
              searched.

              When the -L option is in effect, the -type predicate will always
              match against the type of the file that a symbolic link points
              to rather than the link itself (unless the symbolic link is
              broken).  Actions that can cause symbolic links to become broken
              while find is executing (for example -delete) can give rise to
              confusing behaviour.  Using -L causes the -lname and -ilname
              predicates always to return false.


       -H     Do not follow symbolic links, except while processing the
              command line arguments.  When find examines or prints
              information about files, the information used shall be taken
              from the properties of the symbolic link itself.  The only
              exception to this behaviour is when a file specified on the
              command line is a symbolic link, and the link can be resolved.
              For that situation, the information used is taken from whatever
              the link points to (that is, the link is followed).  The
              information about the link itself is used as a fallback if the
              file pointed to by the symbolic link cannot be examined.  If -H
              is in effect and one of the paths specified on the command line
              is a symbolic link to a directory, the contents of that

findutils 4.10.0 - Generated Tue Aug 20 14:49:39 CDT 2024