FIND(1)                     General Commands Manual                    FIND(1)



NAME
       find - search for files in a directory hierarchy

SYNOPSIS
       find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-D debugopts] [-Olevel] [path...] [expression]

DESCRIPTION
       This  manual page documents the GNU version of find.  GNU find searches
       the directory tree rooted at each given file  name  by  evaluating  the
       given  expression  from left to right, according to the rules of prece-
       dence (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 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  immedi-
       ately 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 -- can also be used to signal that any remaining arguments are not
       options (though ensuring that all start points begin with  either  `./'
       or  `/'  is  generally  safer if you use wildcards in the list of start
       points).

       -P     Never follow symbolic links.  This  is  the  default  behaviour.
              When find examines or prints information a file, 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  prop-
              erties  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 subdirec-
              tory 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 bro-
              ken).  Using -L causes the -lname and -ilname predicates  always
              to return false.


       -H     Do  not  follow symbolic links, except while processing the com-
              mand line arguments.  When find examines or  prints  information
              about  files, the information used shall be taken from the prop-
              erties of the symbolic link itself.   The only exception to this
              behaviour is when a file specified on the command line is a sym-
              bolic 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 sym-
              bolic 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  directory  will  be  examined
              (though of course -maxdepth 0 would prevent this).

       If more than one of -H, -L and -P is specified, each overrides the oth-
       ers; the last one appearing on the command line takes effect.  Since it
       is  the  default,  the  -P  option should be considered to be in effect
       unless either -H or -L is specified.

       GNU find frequently stats files during the processing  of  the  command
       line itself, before any searching has begun.  These options also affect
       how those arguments are processed.  Specifically, there are a number of
       tests  that  compare files listed on the command line against a file we
       are currently considering.  In each case, the  file  specified  on  the
       command  line  will  have been examined and some of its properties will
       have been saved.  If the named file is in fact a symbolic link, and the
       -P  option  is  in effect (or if neither -H nor -L were specified), the
       information used for the comparison will be taken from  the  properties
       of  the symbolic link.  Otherwise, it will be taken from the properties
       of the file the link points to.  If find cannot follow  the  link  (for
       example  because it has insufficient privileges or the link points to a
       nonexistent file) the properties of the link itself will be used.

       When the -H or -L options are in effect, any symbolic links  listed  as
       the  argument of -newer will be dereferenced, and the timestamp will be
       taken from the file to which the symbolic link points.  The  same  con-
       sideration applies to -newerXY, -anewer and -cnewer.

       The  -follow  option has a similar effect to -L, though it takes effect
       at the point where it appears (that is, if -L is not used  but  -follow
       is, any symbolic links appearing after -follow on the command line will
       be dereferenced, and those before it will not).


       -D debugoptions
              Print diagnostic information; this can be  helpful  to  diagnose
              problems  with why find is not doing what you want.  The list of
              debug options should be comma separated.  Compatibility  of  the
              debug  options  is not guaranteed between releases of findutils.
              For a complete list of valid debug options, see  the  output  of
              find -D help.  Valid debug options include

              help   Explain the debugging options

              tree   Show  the  expression  tree in its original and optimised
                     form.

              stat   Print messages as files are examined with  the  stat  and
                     lstat  system  calls.  The find program tries to minimise
                     such calls.

              opt    Prints diagnostic information relating to  the  optimisa-
                     tion of the expression tree; see the -O option.

              rates  Prints a summary indicating how often each predicate suc-
                     ceeded or failed.

       -Olevel
              Enables query optimisation.   The find program reorders tests to
              speed up execution while preserving the overall effect; that is,
              predicates with side effects are not reordered relative to  each
              other.   The  optimisations performed at each optimisation level
              are as follows.

              0      Equivalent to optimisation level 1.

              1      This is the default optimisation level and corresponds to
                     the  traditional behaviour.  Expressions are reordered so
                     that tests based only on the names of files (for  example
                     -name and -regex) are performed first.

              2      Any  -type  or -xtype tests are performed after any tests
                     based only on the names of files, but  before  any  tests
                     that  require information from the inode.  On many modern
                     versions of Unix, file types are  returned  by  readdir()
                     and so these predicates are faster to evaluate than pred-
                     icates which need to stat the file first.

              3      At this optimisation level,  the  full  cost-based  query
                     optimiser  is enabled.  The order of tests is modified so
                     that cheap (i.e. fast) tests are performed first and more
                     expensive ones are performed later, if necessary.  Within
                     each cost band, predicates are evaluated earlier or later
                     according  to  whether they are likely to succeed or not.
                     For -o, predicates which are likely to succeed are evalu-
                     ated  earlier, and for -a, predicates which are likely to
                     fail are evaluated earlier.

              The cost-based optimiser has a fixed  idea  of  how  likely  any
              given  test  is to succeed.  In some cases the probability takes
              account of the specific nature of the test (for example, -type f
              is  assumed  to  be  more  likely to succeed than -type c).  The
              cost-based optimiser is currently being evaluated.   If it  does
              not actually improve the performance of find, it will be removed
              again.  Conversely, optimisations that  prove  to  be  reliable,
              robust and effective may be enabled at lower optimisation levels
              over time.  However, the default  behaviour  (i.e.  optimisation
              level  1)  will not be changed in the 4.3.x release series.  The
              findutils test suite runs all the tests on find at each  optimi-
              sation level and ensures that the result is the same.

EXPRESSIONS
       The  expression  is  made up of options (which affect overall operation
       rather than the processing of a specific file, and always return true),
       tests  (which  return  a  true or false value), and actions (which have
       side effects and return a true or false value), all separated by opera-
       tors.  -and is assumed where the operator is omitted.

       If the expression contains no actions other than -prune, -print is per-
       formed on all files for which the expression is true.


   OPTIONS
       All options always return true.   Except  for  -daystart,  -follow  and
       -regextype,  the  options  affect  all tests, including tests specified
       before the option.  This is because the options are processed when  the
       command  line  is parsed, while the tests don't do anything until files
       are examined.  The -daystart, -follow and -regextype options  are  dif-
       ferent  in  this respect, and have an effect only on tests which appear
       later in the command line.  Therefore, for clarity, it is best to place
       them  at  the  beginning of the expression.  A warning is issued if you
       don't do this.


       -d     A synonym for -depth, for compatibility  with  FreeBSD,  NetBSD,
              MacOS X and OpenBSD.


       -daystart
              Measure  times  (for  -amin,  -atime,  -cmin, -ctime, -mmin, and
              -mtime) from the beginning of today rather than  from  24  hours
              ago.   This  option only affects tests which appear later on the
              command line.


       -depth Process each directory's contents before the  directory  itself.
              The -delete action also implies -depth.


       -follow
              Deprecated;  use  the  -L  option instead.  Dereference symbolic
              links.  Implies -noleaf.  The -follow option affects only  those
              tests  which appear after it on the command line.  Unless the -H
              or -L option has been specified, the  position  of  the  -follow
              option  changes the behaviour of the -newer predicate; any files
              listed as the argument of -newer will be  dereferenced  if  they
              are symbolic links.  The same consideration applies to -newerXY,
              -anewer and -cnewer.  Similarly, the -type predicate will always
              match  against  the type of the file that a symbolic link points
              to rather than the link itself.  Using -follow causes the -lname
              and -ilname predicates always to return false.


       -help, --help
              Print a summary of the command-line usage of find and exit.


       -ignore_readdir_race
              Normally,  find will emit an error message when it fails to stat
              a file.  If you give this option and a file is  deleted  between
              the  time find reads the name of the file from the directory and
              the time it tries to stat the file, no  error  message  will  be
              issued.    This also applies to files or directories whose names
              are given on the command line.  This option takes effect at  the
              time  the  command  line  is  read,  which means that you cannot
              search one part of the filesystem with this option on  and  part
              of  it  with  this  option off (if you need to do that, you will
              need to issue two find commands instead, one with the option and
              one without it).


       -maxdepth levels
              Descend at most levels (a non-negative integer) levels of direc-
              tories below the command line arguments.  -maxdepth 0
               means only apply the tests and  actions  to  the  command  line
              arguments.


       -mindepth levels
              Do  not apply any tests or actions at levels less than levels (a
              non-negative integer).  -mindepth  1  means  process  all  files
              except the command line arguments.


       -mount Don't  descend  directories  on other filesystems.  An alternate
              name for -xdev, for compatibility with some  other  versions  of
              find.


       -noignore_readdir_race
              Turns off the effect of -ignore_readdir_race.


       -noleaf
              Do  not  optimize  by  assuming that directories contain 2 fewer
              subdirectories than their  hard  link  count.   This  option  is
              needed  when  searching  filesystems that do not follow the Unix
              directory-link convention, such as CD-ROM or MS-DOS  filesystems
              or  AFS  volume  mount  points.  Each directory on a normal Unix
              filesystem has at least 2 hard  links:  its  name  and  its  `.'
              entry.   Additionally,  its  subdirectories (if any) each have a
              `..'  entry linked to that directory.  When find is examining  a
              directory,  after it has statted 2 fewer subdirectories than the
              directory's link count, it knows that the rest of the entries in
              the directory are non-directories (`leaf' files in the directory
              tree).  If only the files' names need to be examined,  there  is
              no  need  to  stat  them;  this  gives a significant increase in
              search speed.


       -regextype type
              Changes the regular expression syntax understood by  -regex  and
              -iregex tests which occur later on the command line.  Currently-
              implemented types are emacs (this is  the  default),  posix-awk,
              posix-basic, posix-egrep and posix-extended.


       -version, --version
              Print the find version number and exit.


       -warn, -nowarn
              Turn  warning  messages on or off.  These warnings apply only to
              the command line usage, not to any conditions  that  find  might
              encounter  when  it searches directories.  The default behaviour
              corresponds to -warn if standard input is a tty, and to  -nowarn
              otherwise.


       -xdev  Don't descend directories on other filesystems.


   TESTS
       Some  tests,  for  example  -newerXY  and  -samefile,  allow comparison
       between the file currently being examined and some reference file spec-
       ified  on the command line.  When these tests are used, the interpreta-
       tion of the reference file is determined by the options -H, -L  and  -P
       and any previous -follow, but the reference file is only examined once,
       at the time the command line is parsed.  If the reference  file  cannot
       be  examined  (for  example,  the stat(2) system call fails for it), an
       error message is issued, and find exits with a nonzero status.

       Numeric arguments can be specified as

       +n     for greater than n,

       -n     for less than n,

       n      for exactly n.

       -amin n
              File was last accessed n minutes ago.


       -anewer file
              File was last accessed more recently than file was modified.  If
              file is a symbolic link and the -H option or the -L option is in
              effect, the access time of the file it points to is always used.


       -atime n
              File was last accessed n*24 hours ago.  When  find  figures  out
              how  many  24-hour  periods  ago the file was last accessed, any
              fractional part is ignored, so to match -atime +1, a file has to
              have been accessed at least two days ago.


       -cmin n
              File's status was last changed n minutes ago.


       -cnewer file
              File's status was last changed more recently than file was modi-
              fied.  If file is a symbolic link and the -H option  or  the  -L
              option  is  in  effect,  the  status-change  time of the file it
              points to is always used.


       -ctime n
              File's status was last changed n*24 hours ago.  See the comments
              for -atime to understand how rounding affects the interpretation
              of file status change times.


       -empty File is empty and is either a regular file or a directory.


       -executable
              Matches files which are executable  and  directories  which  are
              searchable  (in  a file name resolution sense).  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.  Because this test
              is based only on the result of the access(2) system call,  there
              is  no  guarantee  that  a file for which this test succeeds can
              actually be executed.


       -false Always false.


       -fstype type
              File is on a filesystem of  type  type.   The  valid  filesystem
              types  vary among different versions of Unix; an incomplete list
              of filesystem types that are accepted on some version of Unix or
              another  is:  ufs, 4.2, 4.3, nfs, tmp, mfs, S51K, S52K.  You can
              use -printf with the %F directive  to  see  the  types  of  your
              filesystems.


       -gid n File's numeric group ID is n.


       -group gname
              File belongs to group gname (numeric group ID allowed).


       -ilname pattern
              Like  -lname,  but  the  match  is  case insensitive.  If the -L
              option or the -follow option is in  effect,  this  test  returns
              false unless the symbolic link is broken.


       -iname pattern
              Like -name, but the match is case insensitive.  For example, the
              patterns `fo*' and `F??' match  the  file  names  `Foo',  `FOO',
              `foo',  `fOo',  etc.   In these patterns, unlike filename expan-
              sion by the shell, an initial '.' can be matched by  `*'.   That
              is, find -name *bar will match the file `.foobar'.   Please note
              that you should quote patterns as a matter of course,  otherwise
              the shell will expand any wildcard characters in them.


       -inum n
              File  has  inode  number  n.   It  is normally easier to use the
              -samefile test instead.


       -ipath pattern
              Behaves in the same way as -iwholename.  This option  is  depre-
              cated, so please do not use it.


       -iregex pattern
              Like -regex, but the match is case insensitive.


       -iwholename pattern
              Like -wholename, but the match is case insensitive.


       -links n
              File has n links.


       -lname pattern
              File  is a symbolic link whose contents match shell pattern pat-
              tern.  The metacharacters do not treat `/' or `.' specially.  If
              the  -L  option  or  the  -follow option is in effect, this test
              returns false unless the symbolic link is broken.


       -mmin n
              File's data was last modified n minutes ago.


       -mtime n
              File's data was last modified n*24 hours ago.  See the  comments
              for -atime to understand how rounding affects the interpretation
              of file modification times.


       -name pattern
              Base of  file  name  (the  path  with  the  leading  directories
              removed)  matches  shell  pattern  pattern.   The metacharacters
              (`*', `?', and `[]') match a `.' at the start of the  base  name
              (this is a change in findutils-4.2.2; see section STANDARDS CON-
              FORMANCE below).  To ignore a directory and the files under  it,
              use  -prune; see an example in the description of -path.  Braces
              are not recognised as being special, despite the fact that  some
              shells  including  Bash  imbue  braces with a special meaning in
              shell patterns.  The filename matching is performed with the use
              of  the  fnmatch(3)  library function.   Don't forget to enclose
              the pattern in quotes in order to protect it from  expansion  by
              the shell.


       -newer file
              File  was  modified  more recently than file.  If file is a sym-
              bolic link and the -H option or the -L option is in effect,  the
              modification time of the file it points to is always used.


       -newerXY reference
              Compares  the timestamp of the current file with reference.  The
              reference argument is normally the name of a file  (and  one  of
              its  timestamps is used for the comparison) but it may also be a
              string describing an absolute time.  X and  Y  are  placeholders
              for other letters, and these letters select which time belonging
              to how reference is used for the comparison.

              a   The access time of the file reference
              B   The birth time of the file reference
              c   The inode status change time of reference
              m   The modification time of the file reference
              t   reference is interpreted directly as a time

              Some combinations are invalid; for example, it is invalid for  X
              to  be t.  Some combinations are not implemented on all systems;
              for example B is not supported on all systems.  If an invalid or
              unsupported  combination  of  XY  is  specified,  a  fatal error
              results.  Time specifications are interpreted as for  the  argu-
              ment  to the -d option of GNU date.  If you try to use the birth
              time of a reference file, and the birth time  cannot  be  deter-
              mined,  a  fatal  error  message results.  If you specify a test
              which refers to the birth time of  files  being  examined,  this
              test will fail for any files where the birth time is unknown.


       -nogroup
              No group corresponds to file's numeric group ID.


       -nouser
              No user corresponds to file's numeric user ID.


       -path pattern
              File  name matches shell pattern pattern.  The metacharacters do
              not treat `/' or `.' specially; so, for example,
                        find . -path "./sr*sc"
              will print an entry for a directory called `./src/misc' (if  one
              exists).   To  ignore  a whole directory tree, use -prune rather
              than checking every file in the tree.  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
              Note that the pattern match test applies to the whole file name,
              starting from one of the start points named on the command line.
              It  would  only  make sense to use an absolute path name here if
              the relevant start point is also an absolute path.   This  means
              that this command will never match anything:
                        find bar -path /foo/bar/myfile -print
              The  predicate -path is also supported by HP-UX find and will be
              in a forthcoming version of the POSIX standard.


       -perm mode
              File's permission bits are exactly  mode  (octal  or  symbolic).
              Since  an  exact match is required, if you want to use this form
              for symbolic modes, you may have to  specify  a  rather  complex
              mode  string.  For example -perm g=w will only match files which
              have mode 0020 (that is, ones for which group  write  permission
              is  the  only  permission set).  It is more likely that you will
              want to use the `/' or `-' forms, for example -perm -g=w,  which
              matches  any file with group write permission.  See the EXAMPLES
              section for some illustrative examples.


       -perm -mode
              All of the permission bits mode are set for the file.   Symbolic
              modes  are accepted in this form, and this is usually the way in
              which would want to use them.  You must specify `u', `g' or  `o'
              if  you use a symbolic mode.   See the EXAMPLES section for some
              illustrative examples.


       -perm /mode
              Any of the permission bits mode are set for the file.   Symbolic
              modes  are  accepted in this form.  You must specify `u', `g' or
              `o' if you use a symbolic mode.  See the  EXAMPLES  section  for
              some  illustrative  examples.  If no permission bits in mode are
              set, this test matches any file (the idea here is to be  consis-
              tent with the behaviour of -perm -000).


       -perm +mode
              Deprecated,  old way of searching for files with any of the per-
              mission bits in mode set.  You should use -perm  /mode  instead.
              Trying to use the `+' syntax with symbolic modes will yield sur-
              prising results.  For example, `+u+x' is a valid  symbolic  mode
              (equivalent to +u,+x, i.e. 0111) and will therefore not be eval-
              uated as -perm +mode but instead as  the  exact  mode  specifier
              -perm  mode  and so it matches files with exact permissions 0111
              instead of files with any execute bit set.  If  you  found  this
              paragraph  confusing,  you're  not alone - just use -perm /mode.
              This form of the -perm test  is  deprecated  because  the  POSIX
              specification  requires  the  interpretation of a leading `+' as
              being part of a symbolic mode, and so we switched to  using  `/'
              instead.


       -readable
              Matches  files  which  are  readable.   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.


       -regex pattern
              File  name  matches regular expression pattern.  This is a match
              on the whole path, not a search.  For example, to match  a  file
              named `./fubar3', you can use the regular expression `.*bar.' or
              `.*b.*3', but not `f.*r3'.  The regular  expressions  understood
              by  find  are by default Emacs Regular Expressions, but this can
              be changed with the -regextype option.


       -samefile name
              File refers to the same inode as name.   When -L is  in  effect,
              this can include symbolic links.


       -size n[cwbkMG]
              File uses n units of space.  The following suffixes can be used:

              `b'    for  512-byte blocks (this is the default if no suffix is
                     used)

              `c'    for bytes

              `w'    for two-byte words

              `k'    for Kilobytes (units of 1024 bytes)

              `M'    for Megabytes (units of 1048576 bytes)

              `G'    for Gigabytes (units of 1073741824 bytes)

              The size does not count  indirect  blocks,  but  it  does  count
              blocks in sparse files that are not actually allocated.  Bear in
              mind that the `%k' and `%b' format specifiers of -printf  handle
              sparse   files  differently.   The  `b'  suffix  always  denotes
              512-byte blocks and never 1 Kilobyte blocks, which is  different
              to the behaviour of -ls.


       -true  Always true.


       -type c
              File is of type c:

              b      block (buffered) special

              c      character (unbuffered) special

              d      directory

              p      named pipe (FIFO)

              f      regular file

              l      symbolic link; this is never true if the -L option or the
                     -follow option is in effect, unless the symbolic link  is
                     broken.  If you want to search for symbolic links when -L
                     is in effect, use -xtype.

              s      socket

              D      door (Solaris)

       -uid n File's numeric user ID is n.


       -used n
              File was last accessed n days after its status was last changed.


       -user uname
              File is owned by user uname (numeric user ID allowed).


       -wholename pattern
              See -path.    This alternative is less portable than -path.


       -writable
              Matches files which  are  writable.   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  sym-
              bolic  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.


   ACTIONS
       -delete
              Delete files; true if removal succeeded.  If the removal failed,
              an  error message is issued.  If -delete fails, find's exit sta-
              tus 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.


       -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 sec-
              tion for examples of the use of the -exec option.  The specified
              command is run once for each matched file.  The command is  exe-
              cuted  in  the starting directory.   There are unavoidable secu-
              rity 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 invoca-
              tions 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.  The command is executed in the
              starting directory.


       -execdir command ;

       -execdir command {} +
              Like -exec, but the specified command is run from the  subdirec-
              tory  containing  the  matched  file,  which is not normally the
              directory in which you started find.  This a  much  more  secure
              method  for invoking commands, as it avoids race conditions dur-
              ing 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 subdirec-
              tory.  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  appropri-
              ately-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.


       -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 1K blocks, unless the environment  vari-
              able  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  other-
              wise  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'  (char-
              acter  classes)  and  'LC_COLLATE' (character ranges and equiva-
              lence 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 pro-
              grams 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' 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' function.

              %Ak    File's  last  access  time  in the format specified by k,
                     which is either `@' or a directive for the  C  `strftime'
                     function.   The  possible  values for k are listed below;
                     some of them might not be available on all  systems,  due
                     to differences in `strftime' between systems.

                     @      seconds  since Jan. 1, 1970, 00:00 GMT, with frac-
                            tional 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)

                     +      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 frac-
                            tional part.

                     X      locale's time representation (H:M:S)

                     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 (Sun-
                            day..Saturday)

                     b      locale's abbreviated month name (Jan..Dec)

                     B      locale's full month name, variable  length  (Janu-
                            ary..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)

                     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' 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
                     command line argument.

              %D     The  device  number  on which the file exists (the st_dev
                     field of struct stat), in decimal.

              %f     File's name with any leading  directories  removed  (only
                     the last element).

              %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     Leading directories of file's name (all but the last ele-
                     ment).  If the file name contains no slashes (since it is
                     in  the  current  directory)  the %h specifier expands to
                     ".".

              %H     Command line argument under which file was found.

              %i     File's inode number (in decimal).

              %k     The amount of disk space used for this file in 1K 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 command line argument
                     under which it was found removed.

              %s     File's size in bytes.

              %S     File's  sparseness.   This  is  calculated   as   (BLOCK-
                     SIZE*st_blocks  / st_size).  The exact value you will get
                     for an ordinary file of a certain length is system-depen-
                     dent.   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.   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' 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 symlinks: L=loop,
                     N=nonexistent

              A `%' character followed by any other  character  is  discarded,
              but  the other character is printed (don't rely on this, as fur-
              ther 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 align-
              ment 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,  false;  no  effect.  Because -delete implies
              -depth, you cannot usefully use -prune and -delete together.


       -quit  Exit immediately.  No child processes will be left running,  but
              no  more  paths specified on the command line will be processed.
              For example, find /tmp/foo /tmp/bar -print -quit will print only
              /tmp/foo.   Any  command  lines  which  have  been built up with
              -execdir ... {} + will be invoked before find exits.   The  exit
              status may or may not be zero, depending on whether an error has
              already occurred.


   UNUSUAL FILENAMES
       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' own-
              ers  but which cannot be used to send arbitrary data to the ter-
              minal, 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.


   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
              "and"; 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 dif-
              ferent 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.



STANDARDS CONFORMANCE
       For closest compliance to  the  POSIX  standard,  you  should  set  the
       POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable.  The following options are speci-
       fied in the POSIX standard (IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 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) will match a leading `.', because IEEE PASC inter-
              pretation 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.


       -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 predicates
              The  predicates  -atime, -ctime, -depth, -group, -links, -mtime,
              -nogroup, -nouser, -print, -prune, -size, -user  and  -xdev  are
              all supported.


       The POSIX standard specifies parentheses `(', `)', negation `!' and the
       `and' and `or' operators ( -a, -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  directo-
       ries  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 mes-
       sage.  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 nec-
       essary.

       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.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       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 pat-
              tern 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 sys-
              tem'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 cat-
              alogues.


       PATH   Affects  the directories which are searched to find the executa-
              bles invoked by -exec, -execdir, -ok and -okdir.


       POSIXLY_CORRECT
              Determines the block size used by -ls and -fls.  If POSIXLY_COR-
              RECT  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 trans-
              lations.


       TZ     Affects the time zone used for some of the  time-related  format
              directives of -printf and -fprintf.

EXAMPLES
       find /tmp -name core -type f -print | xargs /bin/rm -f

       Find  files  named core in or below the directory /tmp and delete them.
       Note that this will work incorrectly if there are  any  filenames  con-
       taining newlines, single or double quotes, or spaces.

       find /tmp -name core -type f -print0 | xargs -0 /bin/rm -f

       Find  files  named core in or below the directory /tmp and delete them,
       processing filenames in such a way that file or  directory  names  con-
       taining  single or double quotes, spaces or newlines are correctly han-
       dled.  The -name test comes before the -type test  in  order  to  avoid
       having to call stat(2) on every file.


       find . -type f -exec file '{}' \;

       Runs  `file'  on  every file in or below the current directory.  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.


       find / \
       \( -perm -4000 -fprintf /root/suid.txt %#m %u %p\n \) , \
       \( -size +100M -fprintf /root/big.txt %-10s %p\n \)

       Traverse the filesystem just once, listing setuid files and directories
       into /root/suid.txt and large files into /root/big.txt.


       find $HOME -mtime 0

       Search for files in your home directory which have been modified in the
       last  twenty-four  hours.  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.


       find /sbin /usr/sbin -executable \! -readable -print

       Search for files which are executable but not readable.


       find . -perm 664

       Search  for files which have read and write permission for their owner,
       and group, but which other users can read  but  not  write  to.   Files
       which  meet  these  criteria  but  have other permissions bits set (for
       example if someone can execute the file) will not be matched.


       find . -perm -664

       Search for files which have read and write permission for  their  owner
       and  group, and which other users can read, without regard to the pres-
       ence of any extra permission bits (for  example  the  executable  bit).
       This will match a file which has mode 0777, for example.


       find . -perm /222

       Search  for files which are writable by somebody (their owner, or their
       group, or anybody else).


       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.  These commands all search for files which are  writable
       by  either  their  owner  or  their  group.  The files don't have to be
       writable by both the owner and group to be matched; either will do.


       find . -perm -220
       find . -perm -g+w,u+w

       Both these commands do the same  thing;  search  for  files  which  are
       writable by both their owner and their group.


       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 every-
       body ( -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 and ! -perm /a+x respectively).


       cd /source-dir
       find . -name .snapshot -prune -o \( \! -name *~ -print0 \)|
       cpio -pmd0 /dest-dir

       This command copies the contents of /source-dir to /dest-dir, but omits
       files  and directories named .snapshot (and anything in them).  It also
       omits files or directories whose name ends in ~,  but  not  their  con-
       tents.  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.


       find repo/ -exec test -d {}/.svn -o -d {}/.git -o -d {}/CVS ; \
       -print -prune

       Given the following directory of  projects  and  their  associated  SCM
       administrative   directories,  perform  an  efficient  search  for  the
       projects' roots:

       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  sib-
       ling directories (project2 and project3) are found.


EXIT STATUS
       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.


SEE ALSO
       locate(1), locatedb(5), updatedb(1),  xargs(1),  chmod(1),  fnmatch(3),
       regex(7),  stat(2),  lstat(2), ls(1), printf(3), strftime(3), ctime(3),
       Finding Files (on-line in Info, or printed).

HISTORY
       As of findutils-4.2.2, shell metacharacters (`*', `?' or `[]' for exam-
       ple)  used  in filename patterns will match a leading `.', because IEEE
       POSIX interpretation 126 requires this.

       The syntax -perm +MODE was deprecated in findutils-4.2.21, in favour of
       -perm  /MODE.   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

NON-BUGS
       $ find . -name *.c -print
       find: paths must precede expression
       Usage: find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-Olevel] [-D help|tree|search|stat|rates|opt|exec] [path...] [expression]

       This  happens  because  *.c has been expanded by the shell resulting in
       find actually receiving a command line like this:

       find . -name bigram.c code.c frcode.c locate.c -print

       That command is of course not going to work.  Instead of  doing  things
       this  way, you should enclose the pattern in quotes or escape the wild-
       card:
       $ find . -name \*.c -print


BUGS
       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.  Please see Finding Files for more information.

       The environment variable LC_COLLATE has no effect on the -ok action.

       The  best  way  to  report  a  bug  is to use the form at http://savan-
       nah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=findutils.  The reason for  this  is  that  you
       will then be able to track progress in fixing the problem.   Other com-
       ments about find(1) and about the findutils package in general  can  be
       sent  to  the bug-findutils mailing list.  To join the list, send email
       to bug-findutils-request@gnu.org.



                                                                       FIND(1)
