How to use regex in file find

Question

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

[bash] How to use regex in file find

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