Difference between revisions 507948 and 507949 on knwiki

{{other uses}}
{{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.  It looks complicated at first glance, but is widely used.

 find . -print0 | xargs -0 COMMAND

The list of files generated by <code>find</code> (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.


===Delete empty files and directories===
Delete all empty files
 find /foo -type f -empty -delete

Delete all empty files and print the names 
 find /foo -type f -empty -delete -print

Delete all empty directories
 find /foo -type d -empty -delete

Delete all empty directories and print the names 
 find /foo -type f -empty -delete -print⏎
⏎
===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

The <tt>[[/dev/null]]</tt> argument is used to show the name of the file before the text that is found. Without it, only the text found is printed.  An equivalent mechanism is to use the "-H" or "--with-filename" option to grep:

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