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

findutils 4.9.0 - Generated Fri Aug 12 16:32:45 CDT 2022