Using the find command in bash

By Dan Aukes

Using the find command in bash

Find all files below the current directory that match “filename.txt”

find . -name filename.txt

Find all files below the current directory that start with “filena”

 find . -name "filena*"

Find files with a name, ignoring case

find . -iname "FileName.txt"

Find directories in “/” with name “Dirname”

find / -type d -name Dirname

Find all files of type “txt”

find . -type f -name "*.txt"

Exclude directories

find . -not \( -path ./miniconda3 -prune \) -name \*.py -print

Find and Replace with find and sed

find . -type f -name "*.md" -print0 | xargs -0 sed -i 's/foo/bar/g'

Find text in a certain file type

Find links in markdown files ending in .mp4

find . -iname "*.md" -exec grep -l '.mp4)' {} \+

Find “video_source” keys in yaml files ending in .yaml

find . -iname "*.yaml" -exec grep -l 'video_source:' {} \+

excluding multiple directories

find . -not \( -path ./repos -prune -o -path ./zenbook-backup -prune -o -path "./.local" -prune -o -path ./.gradle -prune -o -path ./envs -prune  -o -path ./.vscode -prune -o -path ./.config -prune  \) -name "*code*" -type d

find with maximum depth

find . -iname "*.docx" -maxdepth 2

Ignore “permission denied” message

find . -iname "*50_Lines_of*" 2> >(grep -v 'Permission denied' >&2)

or simpler:

find . -iname "*50_lines_of*" 2>&1 | grep -v  "Permission denied"

or just use sudo

sudo find . -iname "*50_lines_of*"

Find all directories without username

find . -type d ! -user danaukes

Find with max depth of four all files that end in either .py or .ipynb that contain cadquery

find . -maxdepth 4 \( -iname "*.py" -o -iname "*.ipynb" \) -exec grep -in cadquery {} \+

Execute something on the results of find with xargs

find . -name '.gitignore' | xargs wc -l

External Resources