find

Usual commands

find / -name "*.c"
find / -maxdepth 4 -name "*.c"
find / -size +1M
find / -group ben
find / -user ben

File type

find /etc/ -type d
find /etc/ -type f

Execute action on file

without confirmation

find ~ -type d -exec ls -l {} \;    

• {} replace the argument of the command, here it means a file in ls -l file
• \;: escape the ; => terminate the ls -l {} command

with confirmation

find ~ -type d -ok -exec ls -l {} \; 

operator

and -a

find /etc/ \( -type d -a -group root \)

or -o

find ~ \( -name "*txt" -o -name "*.md" \)

negation !

find ~ ! -name "*.md"

locate

• faster than find
• only works on file name

• use a db

  locate README.md updatedb

modern locate

mlocate README.md

secure locate

slocate README.md

the locate command is a symlink to one of these programs:

ls -l /usr/bin/locate
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 24 avril 21 13:09 /usr/bin/locate -> /etc/alternatives/locate

ls -l /etc/alternatives/locate
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 avril 21 13:09 /etc/alternatives/locate -> /usr/bin/mlocate