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:
“What a fog! Plane been buzzin’ around overhead for the last half hour. Must be like trying to find your way through the inside of a cow. I never did see such a country. Even the birds are walkin’.”
—Dalton Trumbo (1905–1976)
“And I that have not your faith, how shall I know
That in the blinding light beyond the grave
We’ll find so good a thing as that we have lost?”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Putting people in a room and strapping wires to their wrist to find out if I make them tingle when I’m telling them about Beirut is a long way from Edward R. Murrow.”
—Linda Ellerbee (b. 1932)