How to find all files in a folder that contain a match of a regular expression in the file name

filenamesfilesregular expressionsearch

I'd like to find all of the files in my home folder on Linux (Ubuntu, in this case) that contain a match a particular regular expression. Is there a simple Unix command that I can use in order to do this?

For example, I'd like to find all of the files in my home folder with names that contain a match of the following regex (here, using Javascript-style notation): ((R|r)eading(T|t)est(D|d)ata)

Best Answer

Find's -name option supports file globbing. It also supports a limited set of regex-like options like limited square-bracket expressions, but for actual regex matches, use -regex.

If you're looking for a match in the contents of a file, use grep -r as Craig suggested.

If you want to match the filename, then use find with its -regex option:

find . -type f -regex '.*[Rr]eading[Tt]est[Dd]ata.*' -print

Note the shift in regex, because find doesn't portably support bracketed atoms in its regex. If you happen to be on a Linux system, GNU find supports a -regextype option that gives you more control:

find . -regextype posix-extended -regex '.*((R|r)eading(T|t)est(D|d)ata).*' -print

Note that if all you're looking for is case matching, -iregex or even -iname may be sufficient. If you're using bash as your shell, Gilles' globstar solution should work too.

Related Solutions

The file-naming convention for regular text files

generally, unix prefers lowercase, definitely NOT all caps, READMEs are a special case and are uppercase (as with other special files like COPYING, LICENSE, etc..) - but otherwise, general (or "regular" as you call them) text files should not use uppercase.
either hyphens or underscores, avoid spaces - even escaped
somewhere in the middle: short enough that you can read it quickly and not waste space on your screen, but not so long that it will wrap around in a gui..

Sort input file by the results of a regex

A general method to sort by an arbitrary function of the contents of the line is as follows:

Get the key you want to sort by, and copy it to the beginning of the line
Sort
Delete the key from the beginning of the line

Here is a key you can use in this particular case: this sed program will output the the line from the last identifier to the end.

% sed -e 's/^.*[^[:alnum:]_]\([[:alpha:]][[:alnum:]_]*\)/\1/' < decls

albumArtView; // 1
profileView;  // 2
postFB;          // 3
saveButton;      // 4

To put these keys and the original lines side by side:

% paste <(sed -e 's/^.*[^[:alnum:]_]\([[:alpha:]][[:alnum:]_]*\)/\1/' < decls) decls

To sort them ...

| sort

and to leave just the second field (the original line)

| cut -f 2-

All together (sorting in reverse order, so there's something to show):

% paste <(sed -e 's/^.*[^[:alnum:]_]\([[:alpha:]][[:alnum:]_]*\)/\1/' < decls) decls \
  | sort -r \
  | cut -f 2-

→

@property (nonatomic, assign) UIButton *saveButton;      // 4
@property (nonatomic, strong, readonly) UIImageView *profileView;  // 2
@property (nonatomic, strong, readwrite) UIButton *postFB;          // 3
@property (nonatomic, strong) id <AlbumArtDelegate, UITextFieldDelegate> *albumArtView; // 1

Best Answer

Related Solutions

The file-naming convention for regular text files

Sort input file by the results of a regex

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