Difference between revisions 507891 and 507892 on knwiki

{{otheruses}}
{{lowercase|title=find}} 
In [[Unix-like]] and some other [[operating system]]s, <code>'''find'''</code> is a [[command-line utility]] that [[Search engine (computing)|searches]] through one or more [[directory tree]]s of a [[file system]], locates [[Computer file|file]]s based on some [[user (computing)|user]]-specified criteria and applies a user-specified action on each matched file. The possible search criteria include a [[pattern matching|pattern](contracted; show full)

The following command will ensure that filenames with whitespaces are passed to the executed COMMAND without being split up by the shell.  

 find . -print0 | xargs -0 COMMAND

The list of files generated by find (whilst it is being generated) is simultaneously [[Pipe_
(Unix)|piped]] to xargs, which then executes COMMAND with the files as arguments.  See [[xargs]] for more examples and options.

===Search for a string===
This command will search for a string in all files from the /tmp directory and below:

 find /tmp -exec grep "search string" '{}' /dev/null \; -print

(contracted; show full)[[fr:Find]]
[[it:Find (Unix)]]
[[hu:Find]]
[[ja:Find]]
[[pl:Find]]
[[pt:Find]]
[[ru:Find]]
[[fi:Find (Unix)]]