Linux/Basic commands/find

find[1] is a command-line utility that searches for files in one or more directory trees of a file system. Available in Linux, included in findutils packages, and in Windows (w:Find_(Windows)).

Linux Example commands

edit
  • Search files between a size range:
    • find . -size +10G
    • find . -size +100k -a -size -500k
  • Search empty files: find . -size 0k
  • Search non-empty files: find . ! -size 0k
  • One line listing with sizes using ls and find: ls -ldh $(find /path/to/search/)
  • One line filename and directory listing with full path: find . -name "*"
  • One line filename and NOT directory . listing with full path: find . -type f -exec ls \{\} \;
  • Search for hard links: find /path/to/search -samefile /path/to/your/file[2] (See also: stat)
  • Order by size:
    • find . -type f -ls | sort -rnk7 | more
    • find . -ls 2>&1 | sort -rnk7 | more

Activities

edit
  1. Identify differences between find and ls

See also

edit
  1. http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/find.1.html
  2. https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/how-to-find-all-hard-links-in-a-directory-on-linux/