Using find and grep - how to exclude a result ?

graziano1968 · 09-16-2004, 04:56 AM

Hello

I am searching all files created from user "daniel" using

find / -user daniel

but I wish to remove/exclude from results all lines containing /home/daniel

Is it possible adding a grep command ? Or any other way ?

Thank you

theYinYeti · 09-16-2004, 05:04 AM

find / \( -type d -regex "/home/daniel" -prune \) -o -user daniel -print

Yves.

MartinN · 09-16-2004, 05:06 AM

Hi Daniel (if that's your real name). Welcome to LinuxQuestions!

The -v flag to grep inverts your search. Grep output can be sent to another grep for further filtering. So, to find all files with a name containing martin excluding /home/daniel, you would write
# find / -user daniel | grep -v /home/daniel | grep martin

Martin

graziano1968 · 09-16-2004, 05:07 AM

Thank you , I was not expecting a so fast reply , thank you all !

Graziano

graziano1968 · 09-16-2004, 05:19 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by theYinYeti
find / \( -type d -regex "/home/daniel" -prune \) -o -user daniel -print

Yves.

this solution is interesting because it doesn't use grep -v (so probably it uses less cpu and it's more fast) .

But suppose I wish to exclude from search more parameters , for example
"/home/daniel" and "/backup) ...

I tried

find / \( -type d -regex "/home/daniel" -prune \) \( -type d -regex "/backup" -prune \) -o -user daniel -print

find / \( -type d -regex "/home/daniel" | "/backup" -prune \) -o -user daniel -print

and other ways .. but no solution . Is it possible to exclude multiple values with find ?

Thank you

MartinN · 09-16-2004, 05:29 AM

This is maybe not the answer to your question, but might be valid anyway. If you search with 'find' and 'grep', I don't think that the CPU but the disk transfer speed is what's holding you back. Just listen to the poor HDD when you use find!

Martin

graziano1968 · 09-16-2004, 05:33 AM

infact my idle goes to 0 and IOwait near 99%

I suppose there is no way to limit .. I tried to renice but no useful ...

graziano1968 · 09-16-2004, 05:35 AM

however using find with multimple exclusion should be

find / \( -type d -regex "/home/daniel" -prune -regex "/backup" -prune \) -o -user daniel -print

I tried it now and as it seems works fine.

graziano1968 · 09-16-2004, 05:36 AM

no it doesn't work too , it shows also lines with /backup ...

theYinYeti · 09-16-2004, 05:42 AM

I can't test, but I would try one of those:

find / \( -type d -regex "/home/daniel" -prune \) -o \( -type d -regex "/backup" -prune \) -o -user daniel -print

find / \( -type d -regex '\(/home/daniel\)\|\(/backup\)' -prune \) -o -user daniel -print

Yves.

graziano1968 · 09-16-2004, 05:45 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by theYinYeti
I can't test, but I would try one of those:

find / \( -type d -regex "/home/daniel" -prune \) -o \( -type d -regex "/backup" -prune \) -o -user daniel -print

find / \( -type d -regex '\(/home/daniel\)\|\(/backup\)' -prune \) -o -user daniel -print

Yves.

Thank you , I am testing the 2th just now .

graziano1968 · 09-16-2004, 05:49 AM

find / \( -type d -regex '\(/home/daniel\)\|\(/backup\)' -prune \) -o -user daniel -print

works great . It seems faster than find / -user daniel | grep -v '/home/daniel' | grep -v '/backup'

Thank you

mauricev · 06-29-2005, 10:47 AM

I think you got lucky.

What happens if you reverse the order of the arguments?

find / -user daniel -o \( -type d -regex '\(/home/daniel\)\|\(/backup\)' -prune \) -print

I think it will return no results. If that is the case, then I'm baffled as to what's going on.