find with regexp

ovince · 03-13-2007, 08:53 AM

hi,

how to use find with regexp? For example to remove all files that conatain t1, t2, t3 words I would write

find -type f -regex /t(1|2|3)/ -exec rm {} \;

but it does not work

thanks
oliver

ovince · 03-13-2007, 09:02 AM

actually this does not work

find -type f -regex /t[123]/ -exec rm {} \;

kshkid · 03-13-2007, 10:04 AM

Code:

find . -type f -print -exec egrep "t1|t2|t3" {} -exec rm -i {} \;

Guttorm · 03-13-2007, 10:04 AM

Hi

I never tried -regex with files. But -name also takes patterns. Like:
find -type f -name "t[123]"

ovince · 03-13-2007, 10:29 AM

thanks,

I have tried

find . -type f -print -exec egrep "t1|t2|t3" {} -exec rm -i {} \;

reports that there is no such directory (although there is)

on the other hand

find -type f -name "t[123]"

works if I make a small modification like

find -type f -name "*t[123]*"

but I am not sure how it will handle the situation when I have filenames with t8 t9 t10 words in it. Namelly "*t[8910]*" will affect files with t1 also

Guttorm · 03-13-2007, 12:18 PM

If you remove that last * it wont match t10.

ntubski · 03-13-2007, 08:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by man find

-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.

First this means that "/" as delimiters are not needed. To take your first example:

Code:

 find -type f -regex '.*t\(1\|2\|3\).*' -exec rm {} \;

Note the .* on both sides, otherwise you're unlikely to match anything. To get rid of the annoying backslashes, don't use Emacs notation (it kind of sucks as a default):

Code:

 find -type f -regextype posix-egrep -regex '.*t(1|2|3).*' -exec rm {} \;

Although this particular regexp can use a character set:

Code:

 find -type f -regex '.*t[123].*' -exec rm {} \;

ghostdog74 · 03-13-2007, 11:30 PM

how about this:

Code:

find . -name "t[0-9]*"

ovince · 03-14-2007, 02:19 AM

thanks,

all works nicely