Help using a specific "Find" query

hamster · 04-08-2003, 08:00 AM

Hi. I'm currently having a bit of fun with the find parameter. Amazing how versatile it is! Anyway, what I'm trying to do is:

look for everything that the user jryan owns BUT ignore the /dev and /proc branches

find / -user jryan # simple straight forward search test first... OK

But when I try:

find / -user jryan -prune /dev /proc or find / -prune /dev /proc -user jryan

I get: > paths must precede expression

man find suggest -path but I still get the same message. Can anyone spot where I'm going wrong?

bentz · 04-08-2003, 09:35 AM

That's a tough one... Try this instead:

(from /)

find `ls | grep -v 'proc\|dev'` -user jryan

moses · 04-08-2003, 11:12 AM

Code:

find / -path './dev' -prune -path './proc' -prune -o -user jryan -print

hamster · 04-08-2003, 12:56 PM

moses and bentz,

Thanks for your very quick replies. I got closest with:

find / -path './dev' -prune -path './proc' -prune -o -user jryan -print

but /dev still shows up in the output. ./dev means current dir and beyond.. wonder what could be throwing it off ?

moses · 04-08-2003, 05:49 PM

Sorry, you need to have a -o after the first -prune.

hamster · 04-08-2003, 06:11 PM

Argh! Of course!

Appreciate your help Moses!

bentz · 04-09-2003, 10:43 AM

find / -path './dev' -prune -or -path './proc' -prune -or -user jryan -print

That's facinating, I've never used the expressions that extensively. So it's doing:

find / (if) -path './dev' (then) -prune -or (if) -path './proc' (then) -prune -or (if) -user jryan (then) -print

You da man, Moses!