LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] trouble with find

- Linux - Newbie (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/)

- - trouble with find (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/trouble-with-find-798092/)

trouble with find

find . -atime +360 -exec ls -lah {} \;

that works fine, but i have a directory .snapshot that is a major waste of time to traverse through. i want find to exclude it. there is an option of -prune but i cannot seem to get it to work without saying
paths must precede expression

did some searching but cannot find example of -prune on the net

any ideas?

i was able to use ! -name .snapshot to avoid the directory, but this still does not address the issue of how to use -prune effectively.

Prune is a odd function of sometimes annoying utility... try these to get an idea, be ultra careful using it with exec and -print as they DONT ACT THE SAME. Always test and test and test and test...

Code:

rweaver@core:~/test$ cat demo.sh

#!/bin/bash



echo "find . -print"

find . -print

echo



echo "find . -print \( -path ./.snapshot \) -prune"

find . -print \( -path ./.snapshot \) -prune

echo



echo "find . -print \( -path ./.snapshot \) -prune -exec echo \"exec on:{}\" \;"

find . -print \( -path ./.snapshot \) -prune -exec echo "exec on:{}" \;

echo



echo "find . -print \( -path ./.snapshot \) -prune -o -exec echo \"exec on:{}\" \;"

find . -print \( -path ./.snapshot \) -prune -o -exec echo "exec on:{}" \;

echo

rweaver@core:~/test$ ./demo.sh

find . -print

.

./file.png

./.snapshot

./.snapshot/demo2.fil

./.snapshot/demo.fil

./demo.sh

./file.1



find . -print \( -path ./.snapshot \) -prune

.

./file.png

./.snapshot

./demo.sh

./file.1



find . -print \( -path ./.snapshot \) -prune -exec echo "exec on:{}" \;

.

./file.png

./.snapshot

exec on:./.snapshot

./demo.sh

./file.1



find . -print \( -path ./.snapshot \) -prune -o -exec echo "exec on:{}" \;

.

exec on:.

./file.png

exec on:./file.png

./.snapshot

./demo.sh

exec on:./demo.sh

./file.1

exec on:./file.1

Those demos of it should give you a ~fairly~ good idea of what it expects and how it works... often times for simple exclusion its far easier to use ! whatever.

Quote:

Originally Posted by scr-be (Post 3913515)

did some searching but cannot find example of -prune on the net

any ideas?

Tried to search on LQ site? ;) Yep.

…-path ! '*.snapshot*'… ?

I believe the example in post #4 will still transverse the files in the .snapshot directory, even though the files in it will not be printed. Using prune, the directory will not be traversed, saving time if there are many files in the pruned directory. The find man page even says "To ignore a whole directory tree, use -prune..." in the paragraph describing -path.

you could make it more of a bash script

Code:

#!/usr/bin/bash



find . -atime +360 | grep -v "snapshot" > find.no_snapshot.tmp



while read file; do

ls -alh $file

done < find.no_snapshot.tmp



rm find.no_snapshot.tmp

Quote:

Originally Posted by hockeyman_102 (Post 3913800)

you could make it more of a bash script

Code:

#!/usr/bin/bash



find . -atime +360 | grep -v "snapshot" > find.no_snapshot.tmp



while read file; do

ls -alh $file

done < find.no_snapshot.tmp



rm find.no_snapshot.tmp

If .snapshot was not so large, it would not be a big deal and this script would apply. As read this script would only parse out .snapshot/* after find has traversed it. In the environment I work with .snapshot contains at least 4 exact copies of the data set where it exists. They are time delayed local archives. So to traverse .snapshot would cause for at least 4 times the amount of files required for the desired results.

Did my reply and examples tell you what you needed to know about how to use prune or do you need additional information?

Quote:

Originally Posted by rweaver (Post 3918132)

Did my reply and examples tell you what you needed to know about how to use prune or do you need additional information?

Yes, it was quite informative. Was able to get the action I was looking for! Thanks!