NAME

find2perl - translate find command lines to Perl code

SYNOPSIS

find2perl [paths] [predicates] | perl

DESCRIPTION

find2perl is a little translator to convert find command lines to equivalent Perl code. The resulting code is typically faster than running find itself.

"paths" are a set of paths where find2perl will start its searches and "predicates" are taken from the following list.

! PREDICATE

Negate the sense of the following predicate. The ! must be passed as a distinct argument, so it may need to be surrounded by whitespace and/or quoted from interpretation by the shell using a backslash (just as with using find(1)).

( PREDICATES )

Group the given PREDICATES. The parentheses must be passed as distinct arguments, so they may need to be surrounded by whitespace and/or quoted from interpretation by the shell using a backslash (just as with using find(1)).

PREDICATE1 PREDICATE2

True if _both_ PREDICATE1 and PREDICATE2 are true; PREDICATE2 is not evaluated if PREDICATE1 is false.

PREDICATE1 -o PREDICATE2

True if either one of PREDICATE1 or PREDICATE2 is true; PREDICATE2 is not evaluated if PREDICATE1 is true.

-follow

Follow (dereference) symlinks. The checking of file attributes depends on the position of the -follow option. If it precedes the file check option, an stat is done which means the file check applies to the file the symbolic link is pointing to. If -follow option follows the file check option, this now applies to the symbolic link itself, i.e. an lstat is done.

-depth

Change directory traversal algorithm from breadth-first to depth-first.

-prune

Do not descend into the directory currently matched.

-xdev

Do not traverse mount points (prunes search at mount-point directories).

-name GLOB

File name matches specified GLOB wildcard pattern. GLOB may need to be quoted to avoid interpretation by the shell (just as with using find(1)).

-perm PERM

Low-order 9 bits of permission match octal value PERM.

-perm -PERM

The bits specified in PERM are all set in file's permissions.

-type X

The file's type matches perl's -X operator.

-fstype TYPE

Filesystem of current path is of type TYPE (only NFS/non-NFS distinction is implemented).

-user USER

True if USER is owner of file.

-group GROUP

True if file's group is GROUP.

-nouser

True if file's owner is not in password database.

-nogroup

True if file's group is not in group database.

-inum INUM

True file's inode number is INUM.

-links N

True if (hard) link count of file matches N (see below).

-size N

True if file's size matches N (see below) N is normally counted in 512-byte blocks, but a suffix of "c" specifies that size should be counted in characters (bytes) and a suffix of "k" specifes that size should be counted in 1024-byte blocks.

-atime N

True if last-access time of file matches N (measured in days) (see below).

-ctime N

True if last-changed time of file's inode matches N (measured in days, see below).

-mtime N

True if last-modified time of file matches N (measured in days, see below).

-newer FILE

True if last-modified time of file matches N.

-print

Print out path of file (always true).

-print0

Like -print, but terminates with \0 instead of \n.

-exec OPTIONS ;

exec() the arguments in OPTIONS in a subprocess; any occurence of {} in OPTIONS will first be substituted with the path of the current file. Note that the command "rm" has been special-cased to use perl's unlink() function instead (as an optimization). The ; must be passed as a distinct argument, so it may need to be surrounded by whitespace and/or quoted from interpretation by the shell using a backslash (just as with using find(1)).

-ok OPTIONS ;

Like -exec, but first prompts user; if user's response does not begin with a y, skip the exec. The ; must be passed as a distinct argument, so it may need to be surrounded by whitespace and/or quoted from interpretation by the shell using a backslash (just as with using find(1)).

-eval EXPR

Has the perl script eval() the EXPR.

-ls

Simulates -exec ls -dils {} ;

-tar FILE

Adds current output to tar-format FILE.

-cpio FILE

Adds current output to old-style cpio-format FILE.

-ncpio FILE

Adds current output to "new"-style cpio-format FILE.

Predicates which take a numeric argument N can come in three forms:

* N is prefixed with a +: match values greater than N
* N is prefixed with a -: match values less than N
* N is not prefixed with either + or -: match only values equal to N

SEE ALSO

find