In this article I will share multiple find exec examples. Find is a very helpful utility for every system admin for day to day tasks but you can also combine find exec multiple commands to filter and execute certain tasks. For example: find exec grep a pattern and print only patching files, use find exec with pipe, combine fix exec with sed or awk in Linux or Unix.
Find exec multiple commands syntax
The -exec
flag to find causes find to execute the given command once per file matched, and it will place the name of the file wherever you put the {}
placeholder. The command must end with a semicolon, which has to be escaped from the shell, either as \;
or as ";
".
Syntax to be used for find exec multiple commands:
find {PATH} [OPTIONS] -exec {COMMAND} {} ;
Here,
PATH Provide the path and locations where you wish to execute find exec grep OPTIONS Check man page of find command to get the list of all supported options with find COMMAND provide the command which you wish to combine with find -exec command ; Execute command; true if 0 status is returned. All following arguments to find are taken to be arguments to the command until an argument consisting of `;' is encountered. The string `{}' is replaced by the current file name being processed everywhere it occurs in the arguments to the command, not just in arguments where it is alone, as in some versions of find. -exec command {} + This variant of the -exec action runs the specified command on the selected files, but the command line is built by appending each selected file name at the end; the total number of invocations of the command will be much less than the number of matched files.
NOTE:
40 most used examples of find command in Linux or Unix
Find exec example 1: Collect md5sum
In this find exec example find all files under /tmp
and collect md5sum
for each file
# find /tmp/ -type f -exec md5sum {} \;
Here, -type f
means look out for regular file
Similarly you can find exec multiple commands to collect sha512sum
or sha256sum
for all file with find
command. In the same find exec example to store the output to a file
# find /tmp/ -type f -exec md5sum {} \; > /root/checksum_datababse.out
Find exec example 2: Remove files older than certain time
In the below find exec example we will list files older than 5 days
# find /tmp/ -type f -mtime +5 -exec ls -l {} \;
To remove files older than 5 days
# find /tmp/ -type f -mtime +5 -exec rm -rvf {} \;
Here -mtime
means file's data was last modified n*24
hours ago
Find exec example 3: Rename files
We use mv command to rename files, we can use this with find and exec to rename multiple files
# find / -type f -name 'file*' -exec mv {} {}_renamed \;
This command we use find exec to rename files where the found files are stored in {} and then the same are renamed with _renamed extension
Combine find exec multiple commands
We can combine find exec multiple commands in one line. find
will continue to run one by one as long as the entire chain so far has evaluated to true. So each consecutive -exec
command is executed only if the previous ones returned true (i.e. 0 exit status of the commands).
# find /tmp/dir1/ -type f -exec chown root:root {} \; -exec chmod o+x {} \;
chown root:root file && chmod o+x file
Combine find exec with grep in Linux or Unix
You can combine find exec grep if you wish to look for files with certain content so use find exec grep. For example below I need the list of files which has string "deepak
" using find exec grep. But find exec grep print filename didn't work here as we only get matched string
# find /tmp/ -type f -exec grep -i deepak {} \;
This is a dummy config file owned by deepak
This is a dummy config file owned by deepak
This is a dummy config file owned by deepak
Combine find exec grep print filename
Now in the above command we get a list of output from files which contains deepak
string. But it does not print filename. Here with find exec grep print filename using different methods: In the below example we will combine find exec print filename
# find /tmp/ -type f -exec grep -i deepak {} \+
/tmp/dir2/text3:This is a dummy config file owned by deepak
/tmp/dir2/text1:This is a dummy config file owned by deepak
/tmp/dir2/text5:This is a dummy config file owned by deepak
Alternatively you can also use below commands to combine find exec grep print filename:
# find /tmp/ -type f -exec grep -i "deepak" {} \; -exec echo {} \; # find /tmp/ -type f -exec grep -i "deepak" {} \; -print
Combine find exec shell script function
We can combine find exec shell script function. In the below example I will combine find exec shell script function to rename a file if found
# find /tmp/dir1/ -type f -exec bash -c '
for item do
[[ $item =~ "file1" ]] && mv -v $item ${item}_renamed
done
' bash {} +
Follow pattern matching for more details
Combine find exec with pipe
We can combine find exec with pipe. You can also use multiple pipes with find exec grep multiple commands and string. In the below example I am going to combine find exec with pipe multiple times:
# find /tmp/dir1/ -type f -exec sh -c 'egrep -i a "$1" | grep -i amit' sh {} \; -print
Combine grep and find exec with sed
You can combine find exec with sed or with awk, In the below example we combine grep and find exec with sed
# find /tmp/dir1/ -type f -exec grep deepak {} \; -exec echo -e {}"\n" \; | sed 's/deepak/deep/g'
Here,
- we find all the files under /tmp/dir1
- grep for deepak in all the files which were found under /tmp/dir1
- print the output on STDOUT
- Use sed and replace deepak with deep
Combine find exec grep with cut or awk
In the below example we will combine find exec grep with cut but in the same command you can combine find exec grep with awk
# find /tmp/dir1/ -type f -exec sh -c 'grep deepak "$@" | cut -d":" -f1' {} +
Lastly I hope the steps from the article to find exec multiple commands in Linux or Unix was helpful. So, let me know your suggestions and feedback using the comment section.
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