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:
“October 12, the Discovery. It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“I now know all the people worth knowing in America, and I find no intellect comparable to my own.”
—Margaret Fuller (1810–1850)
“I ... have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is. I only know that people call me a feminist when I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat, or a prostitute.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)