How to search filenames by regex with "find"
BashUnixBash Problem Overview
I was trying to find all files dated and all files 3 days or more ago.
find /home/test -name 'test.log.\d{4}-d{2}-d{2}.zip' -mtime 3
It is not listing anything. What is wrong with it?
Bash Solutions
Solution 1 - Bash
find /home/test -regextype posix-extended -regex '^.*test\.log\.[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}\.zip' -mtime +3
-name
uses globular expressions, aka wildcards. What you want is-regex
- To use intervals as you intend, you
need to tell
find
to use Extended Regular Expressions via the-regextype posix-extended
flag - You need to escape out the periods
because in regex a period has the
special meaning of any single
character. What you want is a
literal period denoted by
\.
- To match only those files that are
greater than 3 days old, you need to prefix your number with a
+
as in-mtime +3
.
Proof of Concept
$ find . -regextype posix-extended -regex '^.*test\.log\.[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}\.zip'
./test.log.1234-12-12.zip
Solution 2 - Bash
Use -regex not -name, and be aware that the regex matches against what find would print, e.g. "/home/test/test.log" not "test.log"
Solution 3 - Bash
Start with:
find . -name '*.log.*.zip' -a -mtime +1
You may not need a regex, try:
find . -name '*.log.*-*-*.zip' -a -mtime +1
You will want the +1 in order to match 1, 2, 3 ...
Solution 4 - Bash
Use -regex
:
From the man page:
-regex pattern
File name matches regular expression pattern. This is a match on the whole path, not a search. For example, to match a file named './fubar3', you can use the
regular expression '.*bar.' or '.*b.*3', but not 'b.*r3'.
Also, I don't believe find
supports regex extensions such as \d
. You need to use [0-9]
.
find . -regex '.*test\.log\.[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]-[0-9][0-9]-[0-9][0-9]\.zip'
Solution 5 - Bash
Just little elaboration of regex for search a directory and file
Find a directroy with name like book
find . -name "*book*" -type d
Find a file with name like book word
find . -name "*book*" -type f