difference between "-o" and "-prune -o" ?

nowbegin · 11-06-2007, 02:29 AM

Hi all,

Here are two simple tests:

Code:

find . -name "*.txt" -o -print

and

Code:

find . -name "*.txt" -prune -o -print

The output are same with each other.
But what is the difference between them?

Thanks.

colucix · 11-06-2007, 03:13 AM

The main difference is that -o is a logical operator and -prune is an action. The output is the same because of the rule "if the expression contains no actions other than -prune, -print is performed on all files for which the expression is true". For a detailed explanation of the -prune usage, you can check this post of mine some time ago.