Using the find command in command substitution constructs

The find command is useful in command substitution constructs. find displays the names of files that have specified characteristics. For example:

find dir1 –name "*.c"

finds all files in the directory dir1 whose names match the wildcard pattern *.c. In other words, it finds all files in that directory with names having the .c suffix.

The command:

ls -l $(find dir1 –name "*.c")

finds all the .c files and then uses ls to display information about these files.

Complicating things further, you could enter

ls -l $(find dir1 –name "*.c") | grep -F "Nov"

This sets up a pipeline that displays ls information only for files that were last changed in November. (To be perfectly accurate, it also displays information about files that have the string Nov in their names, too.)

Another useful find option has the form:

find path –ctime number

This says that you want to find files that have changed in the last number of days. For example:

ls -l $(find dir –ctime 1)

displays ls information about all files that changed either yesterday or today.

On many UNIX and AIX® systems, the find command prints the file names only if you specify the –print option. Thus, you would have to enter:

find dir –name "*.c" –print

to get the results just described. The z/OS UNIX find command automatically prints its results without –print. However, if you have an existing shell script or compatibility with UNIX systems is important to you, you can use –print.