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(find.info)Directories

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Directories
===========

   Here is how to control which directories `find' searches, and how it
searches them.  These two options allow you to process a horizontal
slice of a directory tree.

 - Option: -maxdepth levels
     Descend at most LEVELS (a non-negative integer) levels of
     directories below the command line arguments.  `-maxdepth 0' means
     only apply the tests and actions to the command line arguments.

 - Option: -mindepth levels
     Do not apply any tests or actions at levels less than LEVELS (a
     non-negative integer).  `-mindepth 1' means process all files
     except the command line arguments.

 - Option: -depth
     Process each directory's contents before the directory itself.
     Doing this is a good idea when producing lists of files to archive
     with `cpio' or `tar'.  If a directory does not have write
     permission for its owner, its contents can still be restored from
     the archive since the directory's permissions are restored after
     its contents.

 - Action: -prune
     If `-depth' is not given, true; do not descend into the current
     directory.  If `-depth' is given, false; no effect.  `-prune' only
     affects tests and actions that come after it in the expression, not
     those that come before.

     For example, to skip the directory `src/emacs' and all files and
     directories under it, and print the names of the other files found:

          find . -path './src/emacs' -prune -o -print

 - Option: -noleaf
     Do not optimize by assuming that directories contain 2 fewer
     subdirectories than their hard link count.  This option is needed
     when searching filesystems that do not follow the Unix
     directory-link convention, such as CD-ROM or MS-DOS filesystems or
     AFS volume mount points.  Each directory on a normal Unix
     filesystem has at least 2 hard links: its name and its `.'  entry.
     Additionally, its subdirectories (if any) each have a `..'  entry
     linked to that directory.  When `find' is examining a directory,
     after it has statted 2 fewer subdirectories than the directory's
     link count, it knows that the rest of the entries in the directory
     are non-directories ("leaf" files in the directory tree).  If only
     the files' names need to be examined, there is no need to stat
     them; this gives a significant increase in search speed.