In Unix-like and some other operating systems, find is a command-line utility that searches through one or more directory trees of a file system, locates files based on some user-specified criteria and applies a user-specified action on each matched file. The possible search criteria include a pattern to match against the file name or a time range to match against the modification time or access time of the file. By default, find returns a list of all files below the current working directory.
The related locate programs use a database of indexed files obtained through find (updated at regular intervals, typically by cron job) to provide a faster method of searching the entire filesystem for files by name.
Read more about Find: Find Syntax, POSIX Protection From Infinite Output
Famous quotes containing the word find:
“... nothing seems completely to differentiate the poor but poverty. We find no adjectives to fit them, as a whole, only those of which Want is the mother. “Miserable” covers many; “shabby” most, and I am sadly aware that, in a large majority of minds, “disagreeable” includes them all.”
—Albion Fellows Bacon (1865–1933)
“Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 10:39.
Jesus.
“Martin Pawley: Do ya think maybe’s there’s a chance we still might find her?
Ethan Edwards: Injun’ll chase a thing ‘til he thinks he’s chased it enough. Then he quits. Same way when he runs. Seems like he never learns there’s such a thing as a critter that’ll just keep comin’ on. So we’ll find ‘em in the end. I promise ya. We’ll find ‘em, just as sure as the turnin’ of the earth.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)