Help needed for find command

ZAMO · 09-23-2008, 02:36 AM

Hi all,

Am using the following find command to list the files and got my desired output.

Code:

find /zamo/direct/test/ -name myfile*  -mtime -25 |xargs ls -lht|grep -v total

The output must be as following, since I need to do awk,sed &cut from this

Code:

-rw-rw-r--  1 zamo zamo  21M Jul 14 03:02  myfile_2008.07.14

It was working fine. I have my question here . If my search did not find a output for the 25 days using

Code:

find /zamo/direct/test/ -name myfile*  -mtime -25

It is returning no output. But the

Code:

find /zamo/direct/test/ -name myfile*  -mtime -25 |xargs ls -lht

is making an undesired output of listing all the files in the current directory from which the script is executed.

Is there any command or choice to avoid this kind of errors. I need the output if the "find" results an output of file with 25 days old. But "xargs ls -lht " is also must , as i need to do long listing.

Any alternate for this? any Suggestion.

Thanks

Berhanie · 09-23-2008, 02:49 AM

If I understand the question, to prevent myfile* from being expanded by the shell, you need to quote it:

Code:

find /zamo/direct/test/ -name "myfile*"  -mtime -25 |xargs ls -lht

ZAMO · 09-23-2008, 02:55 AM

Sorry Berhanie,

Its not working . Am getting the same output. I hope you understand my issue and if you have time, have a sample try on your box.

Thanks

Berhanie · 09-23-2008, 03:03 AM

I think I understand the question: ls -lht lists files in the current directory. So, here's something:

Code:

find /zamo/direct/test/ -name 'myfile*'  -mtime -25 -exec ls -lht '{}' \; | grep -v

You should look up the exact syntax for -exec, but I think that's correct.

ZAMO · 09-23-2008, 03:45 AM

Berhanie,

Yes the "exec" works. But the "find" has to search for files within a thousands of files , as it will send out a lot of errors even though i get the desired output.

Code:

find: ls terminated by signal 13

Am using the same "find " about 40 times within the script. IS there anyway to use "xargs " to get my desired outoput and without the errors.

thanks

Berhanie · 09-23-2008, 04:04 AM

I just glanced through the man page of xargs. It looke like there's an "xargs -r", which will come in handy if find doesn't produce output. So, it looks like

Code:

find /zamo/direct/test/ -name 'myfile*'  -mtime -25 |xargs -r ls -lht|grep -v total

is our candidate. By the way, you know about redirecting standard error, right?

jschiwal · 09-23-2008, 04:06 AM

There are two things you want to do. First, the find command will also return directories as well as find, so "ls" will return all files in the directory. Add "-type f". Also, if a file might contain white space, you want to use the NULL character as an argument delimiter when using xargs. Simply add -print0 to the find command and the "-0" argument to xargs. If you have thousands of files matching the criteria, then use one of the limiting option to xargs.

Code:

find /zamo/direct/test/ -type f -name "myfile*" -mtime -25 -print0 | xargs -0 ls -lht

Since all of the arguments are files, you don't have an -v line to get rid of.
If you want to include directories in the find results, then include the -d option for "ls" to prevent recursively listing the directory contents.

ZAMO · 09-23-2008, 04:15 AM

Thank you both for the suggestions,

Currently am moving with

Code:

find /zamo/direct/test/ -name 'myfile*'  -mtime -25 |xargs -r ls -lht|grep -v total

as it works.

Will share with you , if get something hard or useful.

Thanks for you time and help