Find files with certain extensions

Question

How can I use find to find all files that have a .xls or .csv extension? I have seen a -regex option but I don't know how to use it.

score 124 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 09 '08 at 16:01

124

Why not simply use this:

find -name "*.xls" -o -name "*.csv"

You don't need regex for this.

If you absolutely want to use regex simply use

find -regex ".*\.\(xls\|csv\)"

answered Dec 09 '08 at 16:01

Joachim Sauer

9

Better answer than mine. +1. – Paul Tomblin Dec 09 '08 at 16:04
1

Why is a backslash needed before the parenthesis? I know it doesn't work without it, but it seems like it should. – Dec 09 '08 at 16:05
@MCS - without them, it would match a literal ( or ) in the file name. – Paul Tomblin Dec 09 '08 at 16:06
1

because they are emacs regular expressions by default. use -regextype to change that. – Dec 09 '08 at 16:15
4

Just for the record: I can never remeber which tools want "\(" for grouping and which want "(". I always have to try it to know it. – Joachim Sauer Dec 09 '08 at 16:49
@saua - I'm glad I'm not the only one! – Paul Tomblin Dec 10 '08 at 13:10
If the file names have any special characters (whitespace, newlines, etc) the default -print may cause problems with shell expansion. To be absolutely safe you should use -print0 and xargs -0. – Dec 10 '08 at 18:24
2

regex example does not work – hostmaster Jul 08 '15 at 15:10
1

By the way, the find on OSX doesn't support the "|" operator in regex. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5905493/why-isnt-this-regex-working-find-regex-m-h – Achal Dave Dec 06 '15 at 23:30

Paul Tomblin · Answer 2 · 2012-01-02T15:00:28.937

14

find . \( -name  \*.xls -o -name \*.csv \) -print

edited Jan 02 '12 at 15:00

answered Dec 09 '08 at 16:01

Paul Tomblin

Didn't know about the -o option. Thanks! – Dec 09 '08 at 16:02
1

Does it need parentheses? find . '(' -name *.xls -o -name *.csv ')'-print – Dec 09 '08 at 21:48
@Adrian - no, it doesn't. I'm not sure if it would need parens on a non-GNU find where "-print" wasn't already the default action. – Paul Tomblin Dec 10 '08 at 13:09
5

Well, GNU find ( default on ubuntu 11.04) works correctly with both parens and -print OR without (parens and -print). But find . -name \*.xls -o -name \*.csv -print outputs only files matching .csv, – bbaja42 Jan 02 '12 at 14:20
You're right, I need the parens. – Paul Tomblin Jan 02 '12 at 15:02
+1 for grouping them; very useful if you want to use some more options. – l0b0 Mar 19 '13 at 16:16

2 Answers2