Unix / Linux Fundamentals

1. Finding Files

2. Finding Files
• The Linux File System hierarchy includes a large amount of
directories and a deep tree of subdirectories
• When interacting with the system, one of the most common
need is finding a file’s location or find which files are included
in a custom search criteria.

3. find
• ‘find’ is a power-full file search tool. It can find files that
matches any type or criteria, such as:
– File name
– Modification or Access time
– File size
– Similarity to other files

4. find
• Syntax:
 find [options] [filename(s)]
• Options:
 -name ‘pattern’ find files with name matching name
 -iname ‘pattern’ same as above. Case insensitive
 -mtime +/-N find files with modification time of more (+) or less (+)
then N days
 -mmin +/-N same as above. N stands for minutes
 -[i]regex find files with name matching regex
 -user user find files owned by user
 -size +/-N[kMG] find files with size bigger or smaller than N

5. find
 -exec command {} ; execute command {} while replacing {} with the
file name. This option should be used in conjunction with at least one
filter option
Example
$ find . -name .b* -exec head -n1 {} ;
# .bash_profile
# .bashrc
# ~/.bash_logout
ls -ltr ~

6. locate
• ‘locate’ is another tool that finds files. It uses a database
which holds a list of all the files in the system and needs to be
updated periodically using the command ‘updatedb’
• Syntax:
 locate [options] PATTERN
• Options:
 -r ‘regex’ find file with names matching regex
 -c only report amount of times each file was found