Need help with regular expression

aecaudel · 11-03-2005, 02:27 AM

I am trying to use find (under linux) to match file names of the form <anything>_[0-9]. For example:

text_0.txt
.foo_19.bar.c
etc.

I am using:

find . -regex '^\.*_[0-9]+' -print

So far it will only match the filename if it is preceeded by a "."

What am I doing wrong?

fvgestel · 11-03-2005, 05:45 AM

the backslash is making the dot go literal. This should work :

Code:

find . -regex '_[0-9]+\.' -print

aecaudel · 11-03-2005, 02:59 PM

Nope, doesn't work.

Actually the "\" in my first post wasn't necessary. Even without it, the regex only finds filenames with an initial "." It's as if the dot is being escaped even without the slash.

schneidz · 11-03-2005, 03:34 PM

my aix version of 'find' doesn't like regex.

Code:

schneidz@lq:/temp> find . -regex '_[0-9]+\.' -print
find: 0652-017 -regex is not a valid option.

if you dont mind grep this does it for me:

Code:

schneidz@lq:/temp> find . | grep _[0-9]
./.temp_5.tmp
./dupe/schneidz_11-03-05-report2.tmp
./temp_51.tmp
./hello_2.tmp
./world_23.tmp

peace

aecaudel · 11-03-2005, 04:29 PM

Thanks, schneidz, that does it!

Although, for my own information, It would be instructive if someone could tell me why the -regex as above doesn't work.

bigearsbilly · 11-04-2005, 03:40 AM

have you heard of man ?

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 POSIX Basic Regular Expressions, but this
              can be changed with the -regextype option.

fvgestel · 11-04-2005, 06:28 AM

Yes, I also noticed that the whole path is matched. Not only that, find adds a carot at the start and a dollar sign at the end of the expression. So the following regexp SHOULD work :

Code:

find . -regex '.*_[0-9]+\.[^/]*'