pattern to match multiple filenames with find utility - regex

How to find multiple filenames with the bash find command?
$ find /path/* -type f -name pattern
The pattern should match a list of file names:
fname1.jpg
fname2.png
myfile.css
example.gif
I tryed with
https://alvinalexander.com/linux-unix/linux-find-multiple-filenames-patterns-command-example
find multiple filenames command: finding three filename extensions
find . -type f \( -name "*cache" -o -name "*xml" -o -name "*html" \)
and it works.
Anyway I think it would be cleaner with a -name pattern, rather than with a list of -names.
from
$ man find
-name pattern
I m searching for something like: -name '[fname2.png|myfile.css|example.gif ]'

-regex alternative would look as follows:
find . -type f -regextype posix-egrep -regex ".+\.(jpg|png|css)$"
As for -name option:
-name pattern - Base of file name (the path with the leading
directories removed) matches shell pattern.
Shell pattern is not a full-fledged regex pattern.

Just mix them:
find -name "aoc*" -regextype awk -regex ".*[0-9].(class|scala)"
This searches for files, matching shell-pattern aoc* and end in number, with ending .class or .scala.
For your example:
find -name "fname*" -regextype awk -regex ".*[0-9].(png|jpg|css)"
Available types are listet with:
find -regextype -help
However, I first tried "-regextype sed" which is available, but sed itself has options, changing the styles of regexes. And patterns I used to use with sed didn't work, but since the pattern works with awk, it's sufficient for me.

Related

RegEx search on linux filesystem based on filenames

I have tried following command find . | egrep -v '.*/[A-Z]{3}-[0-9]{8}-.' to recursively search for files (not folders) that are not in the pattern. This also displays folders! What am I missing?
You can use find directly with -not option:
find . -type f -regextype posix-egrep -not -regex '.*/[A-Z]{3}-[0-9]{8}-[^/]*$' -exec basename {} \;
With GNU find, you may use
find . -type f -regextype posix-egrep -not -regex '.*/[A-Z]{3}-[0-9]{8}-[^/]*$' -printf "%f\n"
Details:
-type f - return only file paths
-regextype posix-egrep sets the regex flavor to POSIX ERE
-not reverses the regex result
.*/[A-Z]{3}-[0-9]{8}-[^/]*$ - matches paths where file names start with three uppercase letters, -, eight digits, - and then can have any text other than / till the end of the string
-exec basename {} \; / -printf "%f\n" only prints the file names without folders (see Have Find print just the filenames, not full paths)

Recursively find filenames of exactly 8 hex characters, but not all 0-9, no lookahead (Mac terminal, bash)

I'm trying to write a regex to find files recursively with Mac Terminal (bash, not zsh even though Catalina wants me to switch over for whatever reason) using the find command. I'm looking for files that are:
Exactly 8 hexadecimal digits (0-9 and A-F)
But NOT only decimal digits (0-9)
In other words, it would match A1234567, ABC12DEF, 12345ABC, and ABCDABCD, but not 12345678 or 09876543.
To find files that are exactly 8 hex digits, I've used this:
find -E . -type f -regex '.*/[A-F0-9]{8}'
The .*/ is necessary to allow the full path name to precede the filename. This is eventually going to get fed to rm, so I have to keep the path.
It SEEMS like this should work to fulfill both of my requirements:
find -E . -type f -regex '.*/(?![0-9]{8})[A-F0-9]{8}'
But that returns an error:
find: -regex: .*/(?![0-9]{8})[A-F0-9]{8}: repetition-operator operand invalid
It seems like the find command doesn't support lookaheads. How can I do this without one?
With any POSIX-compliant find
find . -type f \
-name '????????' \
! -name '*[![:xdigit:]]*' \
-name '*[![:digit:]]*'
And if you insist on using regexps for this, here you go
find -E . -type f \
-regex '.*/[[:xdigit:]]{8}' \
! -regex '.*/[[:digit:]]*'
Those who use GNU find should drop -E and insert -regextype posix-extended after paths to make this work.
It's probably easiest to just filter out the results you don't like:
find -E . -type f -regex '.*/[A-F0-9]{8}' -print | egrep -v '.*/[0-9]{8}$'
$ find -E . -type f -regex '.*/[A-F0-9]{8}' -print
./01234567
./ABCDEFAF
./ABCDEF01
./ABCDEF2A
./ABCDEFA2
./x/01234567
./x/ABCDEFAF
./x/ABCDEF01
./x/ABCDEF2A
./x/ABCDEFA2
$ find -E . -type f -regex '.*/[A-F0-9]{8}' -print | egrep -v '.*/[0-9]{8}$'
./01234567
./ABCDEFAF
./ABCDEF01
./ABCDEF2A
./ABCDEFA2
./x/01234567
./x/ABCDEFAF
./x/ABCDEF01
./x/ABCDEF2A
./x/ABCDEFA2
My find didn't understand -E and was inexplicably grumpy about -regex in general, but this still worked:
find . -type f -name '[A-F0-9][A-F0-9][A-F0-9][A-F0-9][A-F0-9][A-F0-9][A-F0-9][A-F0-9]' -a -name '*[A-F]*'
Not as elegant as oguz ismail's, but easier to read for my clogged brain, lol

How to find files with regex and list them?

I am new to the whole command-line thing and trying to figure out how to search the current directory and its sub directories for files with a specific filename via regex. Then I want to have the files listed in my command-line.
The regex should match files like:
B2ctes_UCUAAwF-K-large-123x322-132x423.jpg
this_is-a-123-file_name-3124x2445-4235x32.jpeg
file-32x32-64x64.png
The important part is the -[number]x[number]-[number]x[number]
My attempt looks like this:
find . -type f -regex ".+?-\d+x\d+-\d+x\d+\.\w{3,4}" -ls;
There are two problems with this:
-ls puts shows a lot of information. I just want the filenames.
The regex doesn’t work. I have tried to use .+, but even that does not return anything.
You can use this find with regex:
find . -regextype posix-extended -type f -regex ".*-[[:digit:]]+x[[:digit:]]+-[[:digit:]]+x[[:digit:]]+\.[[:alnum:]]{3,4}"
Or on OSX:
find -E . -type f -regex ".*-[[:digit:]]+x[[:digit:]]+-[[:digit:]]+x[[:digit:]]+\.[[:alnum:]]{3,4}"
And without regex:
find . -type f -name "*-[[:digit:]]*x[[:digit:]]*-[[:digit:]]*x[[:digit:]]*.[[:alnum:]]*"
What about simply :
find . -type f -name '-[0-9]*x[0-9]*-[0-9]*x-[0-9]*'
or
find . -type f -regextype posix-egrep -regex '.*-[0-9]+x[0-9]+-[0-9]+x-[0-9]+.*'

Shell - How to deal with find -regex?

I need to look in a directory for sub-directories that all start by "course" but they have version next. For example
course1.1.0.0
course1.2.0.0
course1.3.0.0
So how should I modify my command to make it give me the right list of directories?
find test -regex "[course*]" -type d
You can do:
find test -type d -regex '.*/course[0-9.]*'
it will match files whose name is course plus an amount of numbers and dots.
For example:
$ ls course*
course1.23.0 course1.33.534.1 course1.a course1.a.2
$ find test -type d -regex '.*course[0-9.]*'
test/course1.33.534.1
test/course1.23.0
You need to remove the brackets, and use the proper wildcard syntax for regexes (.*):
find test -regex "course.*" -type d
You can also use the more familiar shell wildcard syntax, by using the -name option instead of -regex:
find test -name 'course*' -type d
I suggest using a regex for precise matching of version number sub directories:
find . -type d -iregex '^\./course\([0-9]\.\)*[0-9]$'
TESTING:
ls -d course*
course1.1.0.0 course1.1.0.5 course1.2.0.0 course1.txt
find . -type d -iregex '^\./course\([0-9]\.\)*[0-9]$'
./course1.1.0.0
./course1.1.0.5
./course1.2.0.0
UPDATE: To match [0-9]. exactly 3 times use this find command:
find test -type d -regex '.*/course[0-9]\.[0-9]\.[0-9]\.[0-9]$'

regextype with find command

I am trying to use the find command with -regextype but it could not able to work properly.
I am trying to find all c and h files send them to pipe and grep the name, func_foo inside those files. What am I missing?
$ find ./ -regextype sed -regex ".*\[c|h]" | xargs grep -n --color func_foo
Also in a similar aspect I tried the following command but it gives me an error like paths must precede expression:
$ find ./ -type f "*.c" | xargs grep -n --color func_foo
The accepted answer contains some inaccuracies.
On my system, GNU find's manpage says to run find -regextype help to see the list of supported regex types.
# find -regextype help
find: Unknown regular expression type 'help'; valid types are 'findutils-default', 'awk', 'egrep', 'ed', 'emacs', 'gnu-awk', 'grep', 'posix-awk', 'posix-basic', 'posix-egrep', 'posix-extended', 'posix-minimal-basic', 'sed'.
E.g. find . -regextype egrep -regex '.*\.(c|h)' finds .c and .h files.
Your regexp syntax was wrong, you had square brackets instead of parentheses. With square brackets, it would be [ch].
You can just use the default regexp type as well: find . -regex '.*\.\(c\|h\)$' also works. Notice that you have to escape (, |, ) characters in this case (with sed regextype as well). You don't have to escape them when using egrep, posix-egrep, posix-extended.
Why not just do:
find ./ -name "*.[c|h]" | xargs grep -n --color func_foo
and
find ./ -type f -name "*.c" | xargs grep -n --color func_foo
Regarding the valid paramters to find's option -regextype this comes verbatim from man find:
-regextype type
Changes the regular expression syntax understood by -regex and -iregex tests which occur later on
the command line. Currently-implemented types are emacs (this is the default),
posix-awk, posix-basic, posix-egrep and posix-extended
There is no type sed.