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:
“Every town which we passed, if we may believe the Gazetteer, had been the residence of some great man. But though we knocked at many doors, and even made particular inquiries, we could not find that there were any now living.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Being a father
Is quite a bother . . .
You improve them mentally
And straighten them dentally, . . .
They’re no longer corralable
Once they find that you’re fallible . . .
But after you’ve raised them and educated them and
gowned them,
They just take their little fingers and wrap you around
them.
Being a father
Is quite a bother,
But I like it, rather.”
—Ogden Nash (1902–1971)
“The lyricism of marginality may find inspiration in the image of the “outlaw,” the great social nomad, who prowls on the confines of a docile, frightened order.”
—Michel Foucault (1926–1984)