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:
“The business of the poet is not to find new emotions, but to use the ordinary ones and, in working them up into poetry, to express feelings which are not in actual emotions at all.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“When I turn my eye inward, I find nothing but doubt and ignorance. All the world conspires to oppose and contradict me; though such is my weakness, that I feel all my opinions loosen and fall of themselves, when unsupported by the approbation of others.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“Too often I hear people say, “Well, at least so-and-so is a good person.” When did being a good person become the least thing we can say about another? And are we raising children who will someday find that this is the least thing they can say about themselves?”
—Neil Kurshan (20th century)