[SOLVED] find with "regex" option not working !!!

kingston · 03-28-2012, 04:23 AM

Hi Gurus
I have the following files.

-bash-3.2$ ls
123 23232 3455
-bash-3.2$ pwd
/home/xkinved/scripts/find

I was trying to list all these files by using the find command with regex option. But i failed, i am doing this as a part of learning "find with regex".

Quote:

-bash-3.2$ find . -type f -regex ^[1-3]*
-bash-3.2$ find . -type f -regex ^[1-3]*$

The above command returned nothing. Help me please.

acid_kewpie · 03-28-2012, 04:25 AM

put the regex in single quotes, as otherwise, bash will interpret the *'s and other characters and turn it into mush.

kingston · 03-28-2012, 04:32 AM

find . -type f -regex '^[1-3]*$'

I tried the above and didnt work. Infact i tried the following too,

find . -type f -regex $^[1-3]*$$
find . -type f -regex "$^[1-3]*$$"

Somewhere i read, "/\*" portion meant the starting of the expression and "\*/" meant the ending of the expression, but i failed in all
these cases. I tried with all other regextypes too.

Quote:

find . -type f -regex "/\*$^[1-3]*$$\*/"

Nothing is working as of now.

grail · 03-28-2012, 04:55 AM

So when you read the man page on -regex, did you read it carefully?

Code:

-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 `f.*r3'.  The regular expressions understood by find are by default Emacs Regular Expressions, but this can be changed with the -regextype option.

druuna · 03-28-2012, 04:58 AM

Hi,

This will not work: '^[1-3].... That is because the found file(s) always start with ./ It is followed by the a file name or directory depending on where the file is located.

If you are standing inside the directory with the files (I do believe that is: /home/xkinved/scripts/find), this would work:

Code:

find . -type f -regex '\./[1-3].*'

It looks for patterns starting with a dot (\.), followed by a forward slash (/) followed by 1, 2 or 3 ([1-3]) followed by any character (.*).

Have a look at the find man page.

Hope this helps.

A speedy grail beat me to it

kingston · 03-28-2012, 04:58 AM

find . -type f -regex '^[1-3]*$' -print

@Grail: Ok, if so, the above should print the files which matches the regex pattern. isnt it?
But in this case, its not doing that.

catkin · 03-28-2012, 05:01 AM

-regex matches the whole path, not just the last component. find . -type f -regex '^\./[1-3]*$' will do what you want.

kingston · 03-28-2012, 05:03 AM

Quote:

find . -type f -regex '\./[1-3].*'

It works. And thanks for the explanation too Drunna.
Thanks to acid_kewpie and grail too, for your lightning reply.

Thanks Catkin.... your command is also working fine...