This is Info file find.info, produced by Makeinfo-1.63 from the input file /ade-src/fsf/findutils/doc/find.texi. START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY * Finding Files: (find). Listing and operating on files that match certain criteria. END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY This file documents the GNU utilities for finding files that match certain criteria and performing various operations on them. Copyright (C) 1994 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one. Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that this permission notice may be stated in a translation approved by the Foundation. File: find.info, Node: Viewing And Editing, Next: Archiving, Up: Common Tasks Viewing And Editing =================== To view a list of files that meet certain criteria, simply run your file viewing program with the file names as arguments. Shells substitute a command enclosed in backquotes with its output, so the whole command looks like this: less `find /usr/include -name '*.h' | xargs grep -l mode_t` You can edit those files by giving an editor name instead of a file viewing program. File: find.info, Node: Archiving, Next: Cleaning Up, Prev: Viewing And Editing, Up: Common Tasks Archiving ========= You can pass a list of files produced by `find' to a file archiving program. GNU `tar' and `cpio' can both read lists of file names from the standard input--either delimited by nulls (the safe way) or by blanks (the lazy, risky default way). To use null-delimited names, give them the `--null' option. You can store a file archive in a file, write it on a tape, or send it over a network to extract on another machine. One common use of `find' to archive files is to send a list of the files in a directory tree to `cpio'. Use `-depth' so if a directory does not have write permission for its owner, its contents can still be restored from the archive since the directory's permissions are restored after its contents. Here is an example of doing this using `cpio'; you could use a more complex `find' expression to archive only certain files. find . -depth -print0 | cpio --create --null --format=crc --file=/dev/nrst0 You could restore that archive using this command: cpio --extract --null --make-dir --unconditional \ --preserve --file=/dev/nrst0 Here are the commands to do the same things using `tar': find . -depth -print0 | tar --create --null --files-from=- --file=/dev/nrst0 tar --extract --null --preserve-perm --same-owner \ --file=/dev/nrst0 Here is an example of copying a directory from one machine to another: find . -depth -print0 | cpio -0o -Hnewc | rsh OTHER-MACHINE "cd `pwd` && cpio -i0dum" File: find.info, Node: Cleaning Up, Next: Strange File Names, Prev: Archiving, Up: Common Tasks Cleaning Up =========== This section gives examples of removing unwanted files in various situations. Here is a command to remove the CVS backup files created when an update requires a merge: find . -name '.#*' -print0 | xargs -0r rm -f You can run this command to clean out your clutter in `/tmp'. You might place it in the file your shell runs when you log out (`.bash_logout', `.logout', or `.zlogout', depending on which shell you use). find /tmp -user $LOGNAME -type f -print0 | xargs -0 -r rm -f To remove old Emacs backup and auto-save files, you can use a command like the following. It is especially important in this case to use null-terminated file names because Emacs packages like the VM mailer often create temporary file names with spaces in them, like `#reply to David J. MacKenzie<1>#'. find ~ \( -name '*~' -o -name '#*#' \) -print0 | xargs --no-run-if-empty --null rm -vf Removing old files from `/tmp' is commonly done from `cron': find /tmp /var/tmp -not -type d -mtime +3 -print0 | xargs --null --no-run-if-empty rm -f find /tmp /var/tmp -depth -mindepth 1 -type d -empty -print0 | xargs --null --no-run-if-empty rmdir The second `find' command above uses `-depth' so it cleans out empty directories depth-first, hoping that the parents become empty and can be removed too. It uses `-mindepth' to avoid removing `/tmp' itself if it becomes totally empty. File: find.info, Node: Strange File Names, Next: Fixing Permissions, Prev: Cleaning Up, Up: Common Tasks Strange File Names ================== `find' can help you remove or rename a file with strange characters in its name. People are sometimes stymied by files whose names contain characters such as spaces, tabs, control characters, or characters with the high bit set. The simplest way to remove such files is: rm -i SOME*PATTERN*THAT*MATCHES*THE*PROBLEM*FILE `rm' asks you whether to remove each file matching the given pattern. If you are using an old shell, this approach might not work if the file name contains a character with the high bit set; the shell may strip it off. A more reliable way is: find . -maxdepth 1 TESTS -ok rm '{}' \; where TESTS uniquely identify the file. The `-maxdepth 1' option prevents `find' from wasting time searching for the file in any subdirectories; if there are no subdirectories, you may omit it. A good way to uniquely identify the problem file is to figure out its inode number; use ls -i Suppose you have a file whose name contains control characters, and you have found that its inode number is 12345. This command prompts you for whether to remove it: find . -maxdepth 1 -inum 12345 -ok rm -f '{}' \; If you don't want to be asked, perhaps because the file name may contain a strange character sequence that will mess up your screen when printed, then use `-exec' instead of `-ok'. If you want to rename the file instead, you can use `mv' instead of `rm': find . -maxdepth 1 -inum 12345 -ok mv '{}' NEW-FILE-NAME \; File: find.info, Node: Fixing Permissions, Next: Classifying Files, Prev: Strange File Names, Up: Common Tasks Fixing Permissions ================== Suppose you want to make sure that everyone can write to the directories in a certain directory tree. Here is a way to find directories lacking either user or group write permission (or both), and fix their permissions: find . -type d -not -perm -ug=w | xargs chmod ug+w You could also reverse the operations, if you want to make sure that directories do *not* have world write permission. File: find.info, Node: Classifying Files, Prev: Fixing Permissions, Up: Common Tasks Classifying Files ================= If you want to classify a set of files into several groups based on different criteria, you can use the comma operator to perform multiple independent tests on the files. Here is an example: find / -type d \( -perm -o=w -fprint allwrite , \ -perm -o=x -fprint allexec \) echo "Directories that can be written to by everyone:" cat allwrite echo "" echo "Directories with search permissions for everyone:" cat allexec `find' has only to make one scan through the directory tree (which is one of the most time consuming parts of its work). File: find.info, Node: Databases, Next: File Permissions, Prev: Common Tasks, Up: Top File Name Databases ******************* The file name databases used by `locate' contain lists of files that were in particular directory trees when the databases were last updated. The file name of the default database is determined when `locate' and `updatedb' are configured and installed. The frequency with which the databases are updated and the directories for which they contain entries depend on how often `updatedb' is run, and with which arguments. * Menu: * Database Locations:: * Database Formats:: File: find.info, Node: Database Locations, Next: Database Formats, Up: Databases Database Locations ================== There can be multiple file name databases. Users can select which databases `locate' searches using an environment variable or a command line option. The system administrator can choose the file name of the default database, the frequency with which the databases are updated, and the directories for which they contain entries. File name databases are updated by running the `updatedb' program, typically nightly. In networked environments, it often makes sense to build a database at the root of each filesystem, containing the entries for that filesystem. `updatedb' is then run for each filesystem on the fileserver where that filesystem is on a local disk, to prevent thrashing the network. Here are the options to `updatedb' to select which directories each database contains entries for: `--localpaths='PATH...'' Non-network directories to put in the database. Default is `/'. `--netpaths='PATH...'' Network (NFS, AFS, RFS, etc.) directories to put in the database. Default is none. `--prunepaths='PATH...'' Directories to not put in the database, which would otherwise be. Default is `/tmp /usr/tmp /var/tmp /afs'. `--output=DBFILE' The database file to build. Default is system-dependent, but typically `/usr/local/var/locatedb'. `--netuser=USER' The user to search network directories as, using `su'. Default is `daemon'. File: find.info, Node: Database Formats, Prev: Database Locations, Up: Databases Database Formats ================ The file name databases contain lists of files that were in particular directory trees when the databases were last updated. The file name database format changed starting with GNU `locate' version 4.0 to allow machines with diffent byte orderings to share the databases. The new GNU `locate' can read both the old and new database formats. However, old versions of `locate' and `find' produce incorrect results if given a new-format database. * Menu: * New Database Format:: * Sample Database:: * Old Database Format:: File: find.info, Node: New Database Format, Next: Sample Database, Up: Database Formats New Database Format ------------------- `updatedb' runs a program called `frcode' to "front-compress" the list of file names, which reduces the database size by a factor of 4 to 5. Front-compression (also known as incremental encoding) works as follows. The database entries are a sorted list (case-insensitively, for users' convenience). Since the list is sorted, each entry is likely to share a prefix (initial string) with the previous entry. Each database entry begins with an offset-differential count byte, which is the additional number of characters of prefix of the preceding entry to use beyond the number that the preceding entry is using of its predecessor. (The counts can be negative.) Following the count is a null-terminated ASCII remainder--the part of the name that follows the shared prefix. If the offset-differential count is larger than can be stored in a byte (+/-127), the byte has the value 0x80 and the count follows in a 2-byte word, with the high byte first (network byte order). Every database begins with a dummy entry for a file called `LOCATE02', which `locate' checks for to ensure that the database file has the correct format; it ignores the entry in doing the search. Databases can not be concatenated together, even if the first (dummy) entry is trimmed from all but the first database. This is because the offset-differential count in the first entry of the second and following databases will be wrong. File: find.info, Node: Sample Database, Next: Old Database Format, Prev: New Database Format, Up: Database Formats Sample Database --------------- Sample input to `frcode': /usr/src /usr/src/cmd/aardvark.c /usr/src/cmd/armadillo.c /usr/tmp/zoo Length of the longest prefix of the preceding entry to share: 0 /usr/src 8 /cmd/aardvark.c 14 rmadillo.c 5 tmp/zoo Output from `frcode', with trailing nulls changed to newlines and count bytes made printable: 0 LOCATE02 0 /usr/src 8 /cmd/aardvark.c 6 rmadillo.c -9 tmp/zoo (6 = 14 - 8, and -9 = 5 - 14) File: find.info, Node: Old Database Format, Prev: Sample Database, Up: Database Formats Old Database Format ------------------- The old database format is used by Unix `locate' and `find' programs and earlier releases of the GNU ones. `updatedb' produces this format if given the `--old-format' option. `updatedb' runs programs called `bigram' and `code' to produce old-format databases. The old format differs from the new one in the following ways. Instead of each entry starting with an offset-differential count byte and ending with a null, byte values from 0 through 28 indicate offset-differential counts from -14 through 14. The byte value indicating that a long offset-differential count follows is 0x1e (30), not 0x80. The long counts are stored in host byte order, which is not necessarily network byte order, and host integer word size, which is usually 4 bytes. They also represent a count 14 less than their value. The database lines have no termination byte; the start of the next line is indicated by its first byte having a value <= 30. In addition, instead of starting with a dummy entry, the old database format starts with a 256 byte table containing the 128 most common bigrams in the file list. A bigram is a pair of adjacent bytes. Bytes in the database that have the high bit set are indexes (with the high bit cleared) into the bigram table. The bigram and offset-differential count coding makes these databases 20-25% smaller than the new format, but makes them not 8-bit clean. Any byte in a file name that is in the ranges used for the special codes is replaced in the database by a question mark, which not coincidentally is the shell wildcard to match a single character. File: find.info, Node: File Permissions, Next: Reference, Prev: Databases, Up: Top File Permissions **************** Each file has a set of "permissions" that control the kinds of access that users have to that file. The permissions for a file are also called its "access mode". They can be represented either in symbolic form or as an octal number. * Menu: * Mode Structure:: Structure of file permissions. * Symbolic Modes:: Mnemonic permissions representation. * Numeric Modes:: Permissions as octal numbers. File: find.info, Node: Mode Structure, Next: Symbolic Modes, Up: File Permissions Structure of File Permissions ============================= There are three kinds of permissions that a user can have for a file: 1. permission to read the file. For directories, this means permission to list the contents of the directory. 2. permission to write to (change) the file. For directories, this means permission to create and remove files in the directory. 3. permission to execute the file (run it as a program). For directories, this means permission to access files in the directory. There are three categories of users who may have different permissions to perform any of the above operations on a file: 1. the file's owner; 2. other users who are in the file's group; 3. everyone else. Files are given an owner and group when they are created. Usually the owner is the current user and the group is the group of the directory the file is in, but this varies with the operating system, the filesystem the file is created on, and the way the file is created. You can change the owner and group of a file by using the `chown' and `chgrp' commands. In addition to the three sets of three permissions listed above, a file's permissions have three special components, which affect only executable files (programs) and, on some systems, directories: 1. set the process's effective user ID to that of the file upon execution (called the "setuid bit"). No effect on directories. 2. set the process's effective group ID to that of the file upon execution (called the "setgid bit"). For directories on some systems, put files created in the directory into the same group as the directory, no matter what group the user who creates them is in. 3. save the program's text image on the swap device so it will load more quickly when run (called the "sticky bit"). For directories on some systems, prevent users from removing files that they do not own in the directory; this is called making the directory "append-only". File: find.info, Node: Symbolic Modes, Next: Numeric Modes, Prev: Mode Structure, Up: File Permissions Symbolic Modes ============== "Symbolic modes" represent changes to files' permissions as operations on single-character symbols. They allow you to modify either all or selected parts of files' permissions, optionally based on their previous values, and perhaps on the current `umask' as well (*note Umask and Protection::.). The format of symbolic modes is: [ugoa...][[+-=][rwxXstugo...]...][,...] The following sections describe the operators and other details of symbolic modes. * Menu: * Setting Permissions:: Basic operations on permissions. * Copying Permissions:: Copying existing permissions. * Changing Special Permissions:: Special permissions. * Conditional Executability:: Conditionally affecting executability. * Multiple Changes:: Making multiple changes. * Umask and Protection:: The effect of the umask. File: find.info, Node: Setting Permissions, Next: Copying Permissions, Up: Symbolic Modes Setting Permissions ------------------- The basic symbolic operations on a file's permissions are adding, removing, and setting the permission that certain users have to read, write, and execute the file. These operations have the following format: USERS OPERATION PERMISSIONS The spaces between the three parts above are shown for readability only; symbolic modes can not contain spaces. The USERS part tells which users' access to the file is changed. It consists of one or more of the following letters (or it can be empty; *note Umask and Protection::., for a description of what happens then). When more than one of these letters is given, the order that they are in does not matter. the user who owns the file; other users who are in the file's group; all other users; all users; the same as `ugo'. The OPERATION part tells how to change the affected users' access to the file, and is one of the following symbols: to add the PERMISSIONS to whatever permissions the USERS already have for the file; to remove the PERMISSIONS from whatever permissions the USERS already have for the file; to make the PERMISSIONS the only permissions that the USERS have for the file. The PERMISSIONS part tells what kind of access to the file should be changed; it is zero or more of the following letters. As with the USERS part, the order does not matter when more than one letter is given. Omitting the PERMISSIONS part is useful only with the `=' operation, where it gives the specified USERS no access at all to the file. the permission the USERS have to read the file; the permission the USERS have to write to the file; the permission the USERS have to execute the file. For example, to give everyone permission to read and write a file, but not to execute it, use: a=rw To remove write permission for from all users other than the file's owner, use: go-w The above command does not affect the access that the owner of the file has to it, nor does it affect whether other users can read or execute the file. To give everyone except a file's owner no permission to do anything with that file, use the mode below. Other users could still remove the file, if they have write permission on the directory it is in. go= Another way to specify the same thing is: og-rxw File: find.info, Node: Copying Permissions, Next: Changing Special Permissions, Prev: Setting Permissions, Up: Symbolic Modes Copying Existing Permissions ---------------------------- You can base part of a file's permissions on part of its existing permissions. To do this, instead of using `r', `w', or `x' after the operator, you use the letter `u', `g', or `o'. For example, the mode o+g adds the permissions for users who are in a file's group to the permissions that other users have for the file. Thus, if the file started out as mode 664 (`rw-rw-r--'), the above mode would change it to mode 666 (`rw-rw-rw-'). If the file had started out as mode 741 (`rwxr----x'), the above mode would change it to mode 745 (`rwxr--r-x'). The `-' and `=' operations work analogously. File: find.info, Node: Changing Special Permissions, Next: Conditional Executability, Prev: Copying Permissions, Up: Symbolic Modes Changing Special Permissions ---------------------------- In addition to changing a file's read, write, and execute permissions, you can change its special permissions. *Note Mode Structure::, for a summary of these permissions. To change a file's permission to set the user ID on execution, use `u' in the USERS part of the symbolic mode and `s' in the PERMISSIONS part. To change a file's permission to set the group ID on execution, use `g' in the USERS part of the symbolic mode and `s' in the PERMISSIONS part. To change a file's permission to stay permanently on the swap device, use `o' in the USERS part of the symbolic mode and `t' in the PERMISSIONS part. For example, to add set user ID permission to a program, you can use the mode: u+s To remove both set user ID and set group ID permission from it, you can use the mode: ug-s To cause a program to be saved on the swap device, you can use the mode: o+t Remember that the special permissions only affect files that are executable, plus, on some systems, directories (on which they have different meanings; *note Mode Structure::.). Using `a' in the USERS part of a symbolic mode does not cause the special permissions to be affected; thus, a+s has *no effect*. You must use `u', `g', and `o' explicitly to affect the special permissions. Also, the combinations `u+t', `g+t', and `o+s' have no effect. The `=' operator is not very useful with special permissions; for example, the mode: o=t does cause the file to be saved on the swap device, but it also removes all read, write, and execute permissions that users not in the file's group might have had for it. File: find.info, Node: Conditional Executability, Next: Multiple Changes, Prev: Changing Special Permissions, Up: Symbolic Modes Conditional Executability ------------------------- There is one more special type of symbolic permission: if you use `X' instead of `x', execute permission is affected only if the file already had execute permission or is a directory. It affects directories' execute permission even if they did not initially have any execute permissions set. For example, this mode: a+X gives all users permission to execute files (or search directories) if anyone could before. File: find.info, Node: Multiple Changes, Next: Umask and Protection, Prev: Conditional Executability, Up: Symbolic Modes Making Multiple Changes ----------------------- The format of symbolic modes is actually more complex than described above (*note Setting Permissions::.). It provides two ways to make multiple changes to files' permissions. The first way is to specify multiple OPERATION and PERMISSIONS parts after a USERS part in the symbolic mode. For example, the mode: og+rX-w gives users other than the owner of the file read permission and, if it is a directory or if someone already had execute permission to it, gives them execute permission; and it also denies them write permission to it file. It does not affect the permission that the owner of the file has for it. The above mode is equivalent to the two modes: og+rX og-w The second way to make multiple changes is to specify more than one simple symbolic mode, separated by commas. For example, the mode: a+r,go-w gives everyone permission to read the file and removes write permission on it for all users except its owner. Another example: u=rwx,g=rx,o= sets all of the non-special permissions for the file explicitly. (It gives users who are not in the file's group no permission at all for The two methods can be combined. The mode: a+r,g+x-w gives all users permission to read the file, and gives users who are in the file's group permission to execute it, as well, but not permission to write to it. The above mode could be written in several different ways; another is: u+r,g+rx,o+r,g-w File: find.info, Node: Umask and Protection, Prev: Multiple Changes, Up: Symbolic Modes The Umask and Protection ------------------------ If the USERS part of a symbolic mode is omitted, it defaults to `a' (affect all users), except that any permissions that are *set* in the system variable `umask' are *not affected*. The value of `umask' can be set using the `umask' command. Its default value varies from system to system. Omitting the USERS part of a symbolic mode is generally not useful with operations other than `+'. It is useful with `+' because it allows you to use `umask' as an easily customizable protection against giving away more permission to files than you intended to. As an example, if `umask' has the value 2, which removes write permission for users who are not in the file's group, then the mode: +w adds permission to write to the file to its owner and to other users who are in the file's group, but *not* to other users. In contrast, the mode: a+w ignores `umask', and *does* give write permission for the file to all users. File: find.info, Node: Numeric Modes, Prev: Symbolic Modes, Up: File Permissions Numeric Modes ============= File permissions are stored internally as 16 bit integers. As an alternative to giving a symbolic mode, you can give an octal (base 8) number that corresponds to the internal representation of the new mode. This number is always interpreted in octal; you do not have to add a leading 0, as you do in C. Mode 0055 is the same as mode 55. A numeric mode is usually shorter than the corresponding symbolic mode, but it is limited in that it can not take into account a file's previous permissions; it can only set them absolutely. The permissions granted to the user, to other users in the file's group, and to other users not in the file's group are each stored as three bits, which are represented as one octal digit. The three special permissions are also each stored as one bit, and they are as a group represented as another octal digit. Here is how the bits are arranged in the 16 bit integer, starting with the lowest valued bit: Value in Corresponding Mode Permission Other users not in the file's group: 1 Execute 2 Write 4 Read Other users in the file's group: 10 Execute 20 Write 40 Read The file's owner: 100 Execute 200 Write 400 Read Special permissions: 1000 Save text image on swap device 2000 Set group ID on execution 4000 Set user ID on execution For example, numeric mode 4755 corresponds to symbolic mode `u=rwxs,go=rx', and numeric mode 664 corresponds to symbolic mode `ug=rw,o=r'. Numeric mode 0 corresponds to symbolic mode `ugo='. File: find.info, Node: Reference, Next: Primary Index, Prev: File Permissions, Up: Top Reference ********* Below are summaries of the command line syntax for the programs discussed in this manual. * Menu: * Invoking find:: * Invoking locate:: * Invoking updatedb:: * Invoking xargs:: File: find.info, Node: Invoking find, Next: Invoking locate, Up: Reference Invoking `find' =============== find [FILE...] [EXPRESSION] `find' searches the directory tree rooted at each file name FILE by evaluating the EXPRESSION on each file it finds in the tree. `find' considers the first argument that begins with `-', `(', `)', `,', or `!' to be the beginning of the expression; any arguments before it are paths to search, and any arguments after it are the rest of the expression. If no paths are given, the current directory is used. If no expression is given, the expression `-print' is used. `find' exits with status 0 if all files are processed successfully, greater than 0 if errors occur. *Note Primary Index::, for a summary of all of the tests, actions, and options that the expression can contain. `find' also recognizes two options for administrative use: `--help' Print a summary of the command-line argument format and exit. `--version' Print the version number of `find' and exit. File: find.info, Node: Invoking locate, Next: Invoking updatedb, Prev: Invoking find, Up: Reference Invoking `locate' ================= locate [OPTION...] PATTERN... `--database=PATH' `-d PATH' Instead of searching the default file name database, search the file name databases in PATH, which is a colon-separated list of database file names. You can also use the environment variable `LOCATE_PATH' to set the list of database files to search. The option overrides the environment variable if both are used. `--help' Print a summary of the options to `locate' and exit. `--version' Print the version number of `locate' and exit. File: find.info, Node: Invoking updatedb, Next: Invoking xargs, Prev: Invoking locate, Up: Reference Invoking `updatedb' =================== updatedb [OPTION...] `--localpaths='PATH...'' Non-network directories to put in the database. Default is `/'. `--netpaths='PATH...'' Network (NFS, AFS, RFS, etc.) directories to put in the database. Default is none. `--prunepaths='PATH...'' Directories to not put in the database, which would otherwise be. Default is `/tmp /usr/tmp /var/tmp /afs'. `--output=DBFILE' The database file to build. Default is system-dependent, but typically `/usr/local/var/locatedb'. `--netuser=USER' The user to search network directories as, using `su'(1). Default is `daemon'. File: find.info, Node: Invoking xargs, Prev: Invoking updatedb, Up: Reference Invoking `xargs' ================ xargs [OPTION...] [COMMAND [INITIAL-ARGUMENTS]] `xargs' exits with the following status: if it succeeds if any invocation of the command exited with status 1-125 if the command exited with status 255 if the command is killed by a signal if the command cannot be run if the command is not found if some other error occurred. `--null' Input filenames are terminated by a null character instead of by whitespace, and the quotes and backslash are not special (every character is taken literally). Disables the end of file string, which is treated like any other argument. `--eof[=EOF-STR]' `-e[EOF-STR]' Set the end of file string to EOF-STR. If the end of file string occurs as a line of input, the rest of the input is ignored. If EOF-STR is omitted, there is no end of file string. If this option is not given, the end of file string defaults to `_'. `--help' Print a summary of the options to `xargs' and exit. `--replace[=REPLACE-STR]' `-i[REPLACE-STR]' Replace occurences of REPLACE-STR in the initial arguments with names read from standard input. Also, unquoted blanks do not terminate arguments. If REPLACE-STR is omitted, it defaults to `{}' (like for `find -exec'). Implies `-x' and `-l 1'. `--max-lines[=MAX-LINES]' `-l[MAX-LINES]' Use at most MAX-LINES nonblank input lines per command line; MAX-LINES defaults to 1 if omitted. Trailing blanks cause an input line to be logically continued on the next input line, for the purpose of counting the lines. Implies `-x'. `--max-args=MAX-ARGS' `-n MAX-ARGS' Use at most MAX-ARGS arguments per command line. Fewer than MAX-ARGS arguments will be used if the size (see the `-s' option) is exceeded, unless the `-x' option is given, in which case `xargs' will exit. `--interactive' Prompt the user about whether to run each command line and read a line from the terminal. Only run the command line if the response starts with `y' or `Y'. Implies `-t'. `--no-run-if-empty' If the standard input does not contain any nonblanks, do not run the command. By default, the command is run once even if there is no input. `--max-chars=MAX-CHARS' `-s MAX-CHARS' Use at most MAX-CHARS characters per command line, including the command and initial arguments and the terminating nulls at the ends of the argument strings. `--verbose' Print the command line on the standard error output before executing it. `--version' Print the version number of `xargs' and exit. `--exit' Exit if the size (see the -S option) is exceeded. `--max-procs=MAX-PROCS' `-P MAX-PROCS' Run up to MAX-PROCS processes at a time; the default is 1. If MAX-PROCS is 0, `xargs' will run as many processes as possible at a time. File: find.info, Node: Primary Index, Prev: Reference, Up: Top `find' Primary Index ******************** This is a list of all of the primaries (tests, actions, and options) that make up `find' expressions for selecting files. *Note find Expressions::, for more information on expressions. * Menu: * -amin: Age Ranges. * -anewer: Comparing Timestamps. * -atime: Age Ranges. * -cmin: Age Ranges. * -cnewer: Comparing Timestamps. * -ctime: Age Ranges. * -daystart: Age Ranges. * -depth: Directories. * -empty: Size. * -exec: Single File. * -false: Combining Primaries With Operators. * -fls: Print File Information. * -follow: Symbolic Links. * -fprint: Print File Name. * -fprint0: Safe File Name Handling. * -fprintf: Print File Information. * -fstype: Filesystems. * -gid: Owner. * -group: Owner. * -ilname: Symbolic Links. * -iname: Base Name Patterns. * -inum: Hard Links. * -ipath: Full Name Patterns. * -iregex: Full Name Patterns. * -links: Hard Links. * -lname: Symbolic Links. * -ls: Print File Information. * -maxdepth: Directories. * -mindepth: Directories. * -mmin: Age Ranges. * -mount: Filesystems. * -mtime: Age Ranges. * -name: Base Name Patterns. * -newer: Comparing Timestamps. * -nogroup: Owner. * -noleaf: Directories. * -nouser: Owner. * -ok: Querying. * -path: Full Name Patterns. * -perm: Permissions. * -print: Print File Name. * -print0: Safe File Name Handling. * -printf: Print File Information. * -prune: Directories. * -regex: Full Name Patterns. * -size: Size. * -true: Combining Primaries With Operators. * -type: Type. * -uid: Owner. * -used: Comparing Timestamps. * -user: Owner. * -xdev: Filesystems. * -xtype: Type.