Searching for Files in Linux

Linux organizes countless files within its directory structure. To search and manage them efficiently, tools like locate, find, xargs, touch, and stat are invaluable. This guide introduces their capabilities and practical use cases.

locate: Fast Name-Based Search

locate quickly searches file paths using a pre-built database:

locate bin/zip

Combine with grep for filtering:

locate zip | grep bin

The database may not reflect recent files. To refresh it manually:

sudo updatedb

find: Precision-Based File Search

find searches directories recursively based on attributes:

find ~ | wc -l

Basic Filtering

find ~ -type d | wc -l
find ~ -type f | wc -l

File Type Definitions

Type	Description
b	Block device
c	Character device
d	Directory
f	Regular file
l	Symbolic link

Search for Large JPG Files

find ~ -type f -name "*.JPG" -size +1M | wc -l

Size Units

Unit	Description
b	512-byte blocks
c	Bytes
w	2-byte words
k	Kilobytes
M	Megabytes
G	Gigabytes

Common find Tests

Test	Description
-cmin	Files modified n minutes ago
-cnewer	Newer than reference file
-empty	Empty files or directories
-name	Matches filename pattern
-iname	Case-insensitive pattern
-user	Owned by specific user

Combining Tests with Operators

find ~ \( -type f -not -perm 0600 \) -or \( -type d -not -perm 0700 \)

Logical Operators

Operator	Function
-and / -a	Both conditions must be true
-or / -o	Either condition is true
-not / !	Negates a condition
()	Groups conditions (escaped with \)

Built-In Actions

Action	Description
-delete	Removes matching files
-ls	Displays details via ls -dils
-print	Prints full file path
-quit	Stops after first match

Delete All .bak Files

find ~ -type f -name '*.bak' -delete

Custom Actions with -exec

find ~ -type f -name 'foo*' -exec ls -l '{}' ';'

Interactive Execution with -ok

find ~ -type f -name 'foo*' -ok ls -l '{}' ';'

Efficient Execution

find ~ -type f -name 'foo*' -exec ls -l '{}' +

find ~ -type f -name 'foo*' -print | xargs ls -l

Handling Special Characters

find ~ -iname '*.jpg' -print0 | xargs --null ls -l

Practical Example

mkdir -p playground/dir-{001..100}

touch playground/dir-{001..100}/file-{A..Z}

Search for Specific File

find playground -type f -name 'file-A' | wc -l

Use touch and stat

touch playground/timestamp
stat playground/timestamp

Update Timestamp of Specific Files

find playground -type f -name 'file-B' -exec touch '{}' ';'

find playground -type f -newer playground/timestamp

Fix File and Directory Permissions

find playground \( -type f -not -perm 0600 -exec chmod 0600 '{}' ';' \) -or \( -type d -not -perm 0700 -exec chmod 0700 '{}' ';' \)

Useful find Options

Option	Description
-depth	Process files before their parent directories
-maxdepth	Limits how deep find descends
-mindepth	Skips initial levels before applying tests
-mount	Prevents crossing into other filesystems
-noleaf	Disables UNIX filesystem optimization

Conclusion

loc