Search files in Linux

There are couples of tools used to find things in Linux.

• find [where] [search patterns][actions]
  search patterns include:
  
  • -name fileNamePattern  match is case sensitive
  • -iname fileNamePattern  match is case insensitive
  • -size [+,-]size (b,c,w,k,M,G) + means great than -means less than
  • -user  username  username is the owner of the files
  • -mmin n  searching files which be modified n mins ago
  • -amin n  searching files which be accessed n mins ago
  • -and/-or/!  are the boolean operator which connect two or more patterns
  actions include:
  
  • -delete
  • exec command
  examples:
  
  • $ find / -name ‘*.c’ 2>/dev/null
    find any .c files under the root directory and discard the error message. 2 indicates the error stream in Linux, and /dev/null is the device where anything you send simply disappears. So 2>/dev/null in this case means that while finding for the files, in case any error messages pop up simply send them to /dev/null i.e. simply discard all error messages.
  • $ find /etc -name ‘*.conf’ -exec ls -l {} \;
    find any .conf files under /etc directory and execute ls -l on the search result. {} indicate the search result \ indicate the end of the command.