Demystifying "find" and "find -exec" ...Lil' Linux Lesson!

Рет қаралды 44,895

Күн бұрын

Has the internet told you Linux' "find" command is too scary to use? Well, they're wrong. Linux' "find" command - also found in lots of other *NIX systems - is a critical tool to learn.
In today's Lil' Linux Lesson, I'll be demystifying the "find" command, and covering how it works with the "-exec" option, and the superpower differences between using "+" and using ";", which I promise will make your life easier as a sysadmin, Linux user, or just any nerd who likes to play with the terminal.
Lastly, this video wouldn't be possible without my monthly sustaining supporters on Patreon and Ko-Fi. Members get a bunch of cool perks- if my unsponsored videos help you, I appreciate your consideration!
/ veronicaexplains
ko-fi.com/VeronicaExplains
0:00 I say "greetings" and tell you why the find command is important
1:24 Basic use of find, both GNU and BSD variants!
2:46 Performing magic in the terminal with find -exec
4:56 Some other parameters for find: -iname, -type, -user, -group, -perm, -size
6:53 Why does find -exec end with a plus?
#linux #homelab #terminal

Пікірлер: 590

@VeronicaExplains Ай бұрын

Some of you commenters are pointing out, accurately, that `grep` can recursively search files on its own, without `find`. Of course it can! But remember, grepping was just the example I was using to illustrate `-exec`. Your options between `-exec` and `{} +` are practically limitless. Also, to those of you about to voice your displeasure with "needing the terminal to find lost files", your assignment is this word problem: "Susie has a VPS running a web server, and her server daemon has crashed due to a malformed configuration file. How can Susie identify and resolve the problem using only GUI tools and no terminal commands?"

@greendblink182 Ай бұрын

Keeping up with the Commodore would be a reality show I would actually watch

@chadcordero1618 Ай бұрын

In my 30 years as a sysadmin, I've never heard of the +. I've always used the \; when using -exec. Thanks.

@Lordie Ай бұрын

37 years for me. I can't wait to soup up my automation scripts with + lol

@guss77 Ай бұрын

Only 28 years here, and I also just learned about + from Veronica. ✌️

@FishKungfu Ай бұрын

Only 25 years here, and I always used \; too. I'll be trying the + now. Thanks, Veronica!

@knucklecorn Ай бұрын

hah, wait until you hear about -execdir

@KeithBoehler Ай бұрын

I decided at one point to never skip an intro to a subject for reasons like this. Sometimes you just learn something new and that is awesome!

@robbylock1741 Ай бұрын

I'm a retired UNIX/Linux System Administrator (30+ years) and I find your content refreshing and more to the point very useful! Yeah there are newer and perhaps simpler commands, but knowing the basics is still very important. People would ask me why learn vi when there is nano for example. Because from AIX to (name your Linux distro) etc, you'll always have vi :) Thanks again for your hard work and keep keep doing what you're doing!

@illegalsmirf Ай бұрын

@@occamraiser Not quite sure how to handle this, but are you aware of the fact vim has more features than nano does? Of course, if you haven't taken the time to learn vim then you won't be aware of that fact and if the pitiful nano is all you need then it's fine. But it is shite for handling text files of any non-trivial degree of length or complexity.

@DavidSchmitt Ай бұрын

Ha, I learned vi on AIX 3.2 in '97

@saszab Ай бұрын

mc (Midnight Commander) has been around for 30 years. Why people are still using find, vi, nano and so on? I understand that there are some cases when there's no other choice (for example, to run certain command with all the found files), but they are very rare.

@DavidSchmitt Ай бұрын

@saszab mc is great for interactive use but extremely unhelpful for shell programming.

@saszab Ай бұрын

@@DavidSchmitt Sure, but these are vary rare cases. Vast majority of the Linux users never write scripts.

@Andoresu96 Ай бұрын

I like the part where veronica says "its explaining time" and explains all over the place

@ducksauz Ай бұрын

Holy Crap! 30+ years in this business and I *just* learned about '+' as an argument to find. How much of my life have I wasted to \; ?! Thanks Veronica! You're frickin' awesome!

@uthamal Ай бұрын

Same here, I always tended to use -print0 and pipe it to xargs -0. Thanks Veronica!

@jefflsmith616 Ай бұрын

This was a real "+" for a topic. I use "find" nearly every day and did not know it has alternate endings \; Thanks.

@d00kieC Ай бұрын

As someone who was "cool" in the mid-nineties, I appreciate the spacehog based puns.

@VeronicaExplains Ай бұрын

I figured there was only a few who would get it.

@Richthofen80 Ай бұрын

It's a good day when there's a new video from Veronica!

@zantetsu8674 Ай бұрын

I prefer `find | xargs grep` because it executes grep one time across all the found files instead of executing a separate grep for each file as find -exec would do. find | xargs grep is often an order of magnitude faster when grepping a lot of files. EDIT: OK I wrote the above before I finished watching the video! And I see the the '+' form of exec does effectively the same thing. Wow I learned something new after using find daily for about 25 years. Thanks!

@VeronicaExplains Ай бұрын

The + in my command executes once though.

@dingokidneys Ай бұрын

@@VeronicaExplains I also learned this trick for the first time after using xargs for years. I gotta RTFM a bit more. 😁

@Rudxain Ай бұрын

I want to mention GNU `parallel`, which is similar to `xargs` but distributes the load across all logical cores. The only bad thing is that it requires a Perl interpreter (and many other Perl dependencies)

@gedeonducloitre-delavarenn8106 Ай бұрын

the xarg approach is an antipattern: it's broken with filenames containing quotes or newlines. The cure is to use GNU's versions with the -print0 predicate to find, and the -0 (or --null) option to xarg. But this is not portable, and is very awkward. -exec (or even -execdir) with + is the correct approach

@billeterk Ай бұрын

I believe neither ‘+’ nor xargs necessarily put all the files as arguments to the command but parcel them up with respect to MAXARGS.

@Aura_Mancer Ай бұрын

Thank you! Because honestly, even as a somewhat experienced Linux user, learning these types of tools is hard, because you only use it when you needed by looking at the long documentation, then you never touch it again so you forget. Then when you needed it once more, it's the same tedious process. A fun video like this is perfect to master a tool like this!

@ftolead Ай бұрын

The find command can be insanely powerful. I just learned the (+) versus the (;). Thank you for that. I had always used ; and didn't know about the +

@petermayes8764 Ай бұрын

Started using Unix on a VAX 11/780 in the '80s before you were born!! But you're never too old to learn something new! Been using "\;" since then, and only just now learned about "+"! Thank you.

@UnwalledGarden Ай бұрын

Your no nonsense explanations are great!

@paul.j.macdonald Ай бұрын

Been a Linux user for 20+ years. Love your videos and how you extend your knowledge to newer users. Keep it up.

@flapjack9495 Ай бұрын

I've been a professional Linux sysadmin since the 90s and use the find command all the damn time. This intro was perfect, and it taught me something I didn't know - ending the command with a plus instead of a semicolon. That's super useful in many contexts - thanks for that!

@MrG0CE Ай бұрын

SHE'S A LIGHT IN THE LINUX COMUNITY ! LIKE THE GUY FROM "THE LINUX EXPERIMENT".

@CurrentlyVince Ай бұрын

I love these videos -- if I ever have any kind of "virtual assistant" on a Linux machine, I want the voice to be Veronica Explains in 8th grade math teacher mode.

@andrewlankford9634 Ай бұрын

Never knew Gilda Radner was so into Linux. And still alive for that matter.

@thekidneystoner6183 Ай бұрын

Linux has been my development platform for work for nearly a decade, but I still watch these videos because of how fun they are. And speaking of keeping up with the Commodore, I haven't written a BASIC program in years, I realised I miss it.

@paulsander5433 Ай бұрын

Ah, but would you admit that on a CV? Right after knowing how to configure sendmail, without the help of m4?

@remi6801 Ай бұрын

Are you keeping up with the Commodore? Love your channel ! Very informative and entertaining !

@VeronicaExplains Ай бұрын

Thank you! I have it on good authority that the Commodore is keeping up with us.

@DavidSchmitt Ай бұрын

Been using find for 25 years and still learned something new (+). Thanks!

@xcalibur839 Ай бұрын

Great video, looking forward to the grep episode as well. Are you keeping up with the Commodore?

@JohnFrancisShade Ай бұрын

I was wondering the same thing!

@user-vr2rq5hl6l Ай бұрын

Using “find” with -exec is so powerful! I’ve been using it since I first discovered it in a Unix manual in 1985. Whew!

@mausmalone Ай бұрын

'cause the Commodore is keeping up with you! Loved how simple this was, and especially the explanation of the exec parameter termination and curly braces. I've seen so many "here's how you use find to ..." tutorials and never understood what was going on with those.

@bargainbincatgirl6698 Ай бұрын

This is what I need to start my weekend, a quick explanation of how to use a command tool older than me.... And I'm 40 years old.

@Irenethemeanbean Ай бұрын

Thank you, Veronica! I’m finally taking my first steps into Linux and you’re helping me ‘find’ things along the way!

@zrodger2296 Ай бұрын

I need to try out a few examples tomorrow on my system, it's been awhile since I used this sequence of commands. I always used to use find then xargs then grep. Great timely video!

@user-hc6uo5fp8n Ай бұрын

Thank you for doing these Lil' Linux Lesson and concentrating on the commands that builtin rather than the newer that are not always in the repo's.

@octopusonfire100 Ай бұрын

The moment I learnt how to use find, I felt like I had unlocked a superpower.

@joseoncrack Ай бұрын

Useful and to the point. No annoying sponsorship. 👍

@matthewrease2376 Ай бұрын

"Have you played Atari today!" (No commodore because I'm a rebel. "

@saszab Ай бұрын

ZX Spectrum rulez!

@kevinrineer5356 Ай бұрын

thanks for the different between the + and \; ! I know I had read that at one point, but forgot the difference a long while ago.

@s.i.n4985 8 күн бұрын

Wow, i actually think this is pretty cool that you are keep going through years! there is not so many youtubers that discuss linux and this nerd stuff, i believe in you!🥰😍

@zach9799 Ай бұрын

I love your videos. So information-dense! Great point about using fundamental built-in commands on systems that you can't install unnecessary packages on.

@FP_95 13 күн бұрын

Your teaching skills are GOD tier. Thanks for all your hard work!

@skelebro9999 14 сағат бұрын

I really like the editing of this video!

@tuxthedev3470 Ай бұрын

This video format is amazing!

@dunkinDoge 28 күн бұрын

saw the video couple of days ago, ended up needing this today. You saved me a loooooot of time and troubles. you're awesome

@Getoverhere666 Ай бұрын

Veronica, your are the miracle!

@klemmr3233 20 күн бұрын

Our late cat loved my C64. He was always a keyboard walker, but this was his favourite. I'm keeping up with my Commodore now, as it's safe to plug it in again.

@derekr54 Ай бұрын

Great video as usual,thanks Veronica

@kellybmackenzie Ай бұрын

I adore your content so much! I always learn so much with your videos, thanks a lot!

@DouglasJenkins Ай бұрын

Are you keeping up with the Commodore? I lol'd at "all the patience of a substitute 8th grade math teacher."

@dewildtvanreenen4358 15 күн бұрын

This was quite serendipitous two days after watching your video I needed to delete a bunch of svg’s and I would not have thought of find if not for your video

@ouilogique Ай бұрын

👍 for the “+” tip. If you need absolute paths use "`pwd`" instead of . And if you want one line per result use “find” a second time instead of “echo” find "`pwd`" -type f -exec find {} +

@donaldwilliams6821 Ай бұрын

Great video Yes, there are newer and faster utils but at work I have much older Linux servers without access to them So knowing how to do it the "old fashioned " way is important. Plus if your scripts use them it's more portable to any system. You can always check for the presence of FD, etc and use "classic" FIND as a backup

@kumar_prabhat Ай бұрын

love it, keep 'em coming

@henriquepicanco97 Ай бұрын

I never understood the find command... Until now! Thanks, Veronica!

@jay_wright_thats_right Ай бұрын

I love your damn videos. I can't wait to see where this channel is at this time, next year. No pressure, though!

@bruck2723 Ай бұрын

| column is the coolest thing i learned today.

@saszab Ай бұрын

It's called pipe.

@bruck2723 Ай бұрын

@@saszab | this is pipe, that i know . i didn't know you could column like that.

@KoopstaKlicca Ай бұрын

Very useful video, thank you!

@wingflanagan Ай бұрын

Veronica, you are my spirit animal!

@ImL8 Ай бұрын

Thanks for another entertaining video!

@MichaelMossmanNZ Ай бұрын

Thanks for another great vid! I'm keeping up with the Commodore ... the Holden Commodore automobile that is, formerly manufactured by GM Australia. Greetings from down-under =)

@speakerbench 19 күн бұрын

Excellent little tutorial and I look forward to the others. I've been using Linux a bit, on-and-off since 2005, and used find regularly, but consider myself a novice.

@neuralmodulator Ай бұрын

Spacehog references = definite win

@ViewtifulSam Ай бұрын

As to the point @ around 1:11, I'm really glad you made a video about find because the simpler stuff such as fd doesn't require much explanation and the deep uses of find seem really really useful!

@VeronicaExplains Ай бұрын

As of this moment, fd is unlikely to be in your baseline distro, container, or enterprise approved tools list. Find will be though!

@GoWithAndy-cp8tz 29 күн бұрын

Hi Veronica. I'm amazed by your passion for computers! I really appreciate your videos. Cheers!

@Hinipe 19 күн бұрын

I find your explanations easy to follow. :)

@careymcmanus Ай бұрын

Recent Linux convert that"s keeping up with the commodore. Finding these videos super helpful for making my transition easier

@user-ng8cx3fj5p 10 күн бұрын

I heard about this channel on Mastodon. I like your videos very much, thank you for your work!

@jrpsims 27 күн бұрын

Nice video, and I’m happy to see people still using find. Be careful with quotes! The double quotes you used around *.txt will still allow the shell to expand the wildcard instead of passing it to find. You need to use single quotes, or put \ in front of the *. Your example passed into find a list of filenames, not the pattern *.txt

@PaulHeffner Ай бұрын

I've been using 'find' since the early '80s but I'm too aware how even the earliest commands "evolve" over time so I had a look. This is a nice overview of the basic command (like others, I didn't know about the '+' delimiter, that was worth the watch by itself. One explanation that would help is how the predicates of find act as a left-to-right execution queue, meaning you can list the conditions and each will be tested and if it succeeds, find will move on to the next test. This allows really useful sets of tests where you can do things like "files owned by fred larger than 1gb whose name begins with 'p'. A really nice video, thanks! (Keeping up with the Commodore)

@thatflutterdev Ай бұрын

Thanks for making this useful video, I didn't know the find command existed until now

@frighteningenius Ай бұрын

yayy new linux video!! edit: also, congrats on the 100k :)

@guilherme1556 29 күн бұрын

Awesome video Veronica, I loved this type of video with a specific linux topic!

@VeronicaExplains 21 күн бұрын

Thank you for the support! More videos like this are on the way!

@ya64 27 күн бұрын

Didn't know about the file size option. Very useful!

@sansmojo 28 күн бұрын

find is one of my most used commands. Great video.

@pjcpspn670 Ай бұрын

Love the humor, do the thing that makes the thing tell you when I publish the thing hahaha, Nice Vid.

@mcatower Ай бұрын

Great video! Do more useful command explainers like these please ❤

@jameskemman5892 Ай бұрын

going straight on my to watch list :)

@gyorgybereg6916 Ай бұрын

Keep up the commodore and the vids!

@octaviolopez9966 Ай бұрын

As a linux user my self, i welcome more ways to do tasks in linux wether it is with a gui or cli, the same for browsers, i don't mind using chromium or opera, firefox for websites, TRULLY NICE WORK, CHEERS FROM TIJUANA MEXICO!

@zachh1000 Ай бұрын

Hilariously I’ve just started to use find for more things since being forced onto wall, terminal is all I’ve got. Now I’ve got some more trick, thanks!

@moetocafe Ай бұрын

Very useful, thank you! Now I can list all files, bigger than say 100 MB in my Downloads folder, to easily spot the potential candidates for deletion, if running low on space: find Downloads/ -size +100M (with -ls at the end you get some additional details of the found files)

@MrAnish310 20 күн бұрын

Great explanation in 8 minutes especially exec +

@VeronicaExplains 19 күн бұрын

Thanks! That's my goal with these, trying to keep them under 10 minutes and still thorough.

@BryonLape 14 күн бұрын

I've been using find like this for nearly 30 years. I remember when -print was required to see the filename. I didn't know it was mystery.

@VexisMorlock Ай бұрын

I feel like we should mention that you shouldn't try to get to fancy with -exec; It can often lead to unwanted results. ie don't use this to rename or manipulate files on your system, but this kind of thing is fine. Also if you have not covered xargs its one of my favs.

@eDoc2020 29 күн бұрын

Whenever I do potentially dangerous actions with scripting I always do a "dry run" with echo before the actual command name.

@TechnologyJunkie Ай бұрын

Hard to believe it has been 30 years since the demise of C=. My A-3000 still rocks, and my C= 128 is still great.

@DBTechYT Ай бұрын

The find command is one of the commands that I always have to look up the instructions for when I need it :)

@kid_scarlet Ай бұрын

great video! thanks! i'm a novice/intermediate linux user, & while man is helpful, sometimes a video that explains a command can be waaaay better than text on a screen. so thanks again!

@kid_scarlet Ай бұрын

oh, and, are you keeping up with the commodore?

@cristianseres1353 Ай бұрын

I still have my C64, 1541 and a lot of floppies at my brother's place. Blue Max, Castles of Dr Creep etc, lots of memories.

@jamescoulter9659 Ай бұрын

Brilliant using find to find space hogs! (In the meantime, you can also find space hogs on The Muppet Show ; )

@mattnik Ай бұрын

Thanks so much for posting this! 🙂

@DerekLippold Ай бұрын

This is the kind of content I need being I have no idea how to do many basic Linux stuff

@StMidium Ай бұрын

At work, we use git quite a lot, and manually making sure to run 'git pull' before I start working on a repo gets old pretty quick, so I wrote a quick find one liner that searches recursively for the .git folder, and executes 'git pull' if it finds it. This script is set as a cron job to run every morning just before I start work. Works great!

@andrukthegreat 27 күн бұрын

Did anyone notice the directory in which the script for this video was in, is spelled "Scirpts" good you didn 't look for the Scripts Directory. / :) . You're Awesome Veronica!

@MallocArray Ай бұрын

Love these little tidbits. Easier to commit then to memory when it isn't one of 10+ all presented at once. Looking forward to grep

@peterjansen4826 Ай бұрын

Those beautifal mechanical keyboards which Veronia uses. Love it!

@michaelwright2986 16 күн бұрын

I feel I may be going back to the command line, thanks to this sort of thing. Also, at 1:30 I liked the undertaking to treat comments with all the patience of a substitute 8th grad maths teacher. That should be an ANSI standard.

@nicozica Ай бұрын

Are you keeping up with the Commodore?? I understand very little of this part of the Linux world.. But your videos are always a joy to watch.. Cheers Veronica!! You're as awesome as Linux 😀🤗

@GeoffintheGarage Ай бұрын

Such a useful info-dense video! I just started a network tech class with a Linux portion, so these videos are super helpful and well-timed for me. Looking forward to the grep lil' Linux lesson too. Are you keeping up with the Commodore?!

@MikeWood Ай бұрын

As Indiana Jones learned in the Library while questing for the grail, + does actually mark the spot. :) Never knew that.

@woritsez Ай бұрын

i'm a know nothing who often struggles to find things. thank you. i'll be saving this and coming back to it for years. presuming i don't forget where i saved it.

@ademirgabardo1913 Ай бұрын

Very useful video, love it.

@ryanlemere4212 Ай бұрын

Super awesome love the jams! Great info! Are you keeping up with the commodore?

@MegaManNeo Ай бұрын

I deserves a place in my Linux playlist and you deserve a subscription. So far I kinda made it through using locate and scroll through results but that's not as efficient as what you told us in this video.

@JuarezJaques Ай бұрын

U way to explain is amazing!! Adorable!

@ericpayne2846 Ай бұрын

Hi Veronica! I have been subscribed and watching your videos for about a year now, and I just wanted to comment that they are very entertaining, and my favorite are the "Lil' Linux Lesson!" variety, because I have A LOT to learn and I really love it when I learn something new and useful by the time the video ends (like this one!) Thanks for making these, and I hope to see more "Lil' Linux Lesson!" videos in the near future. by the way, are you keeping up with the Commodore?