What is the correct syntax for:
find . -type f -name \*.\(shtml\|css\) This works, but is inelegant:
find . -type f -name \*.shtml > f.txt && find . -type f -name \*.css >> f.txt How to do the same, but in fewer keystrokes?
04 Answers
You can combine different search expressions with the logical operators -or or -and, so your case can be written as
find . -type f \( -name "*.shtml" -or -name "*.css" \) This also show that you do not need to escape special shell characters when you use quotes.
Edit
Since -or has lower precedence than the implied -and between -type and the first -name put name part into parentheses as suggested by Chris.
Here is one way to do your first version:
find -type f -regex ".*/.*\.\(shtml\|css\)" You need to parenthesize to only include files:
find . -type f \( -name "*.shtml" -o -name "*.css" \) -print Bonus: this is POSIX-compliant syntax.
I often find myself ending up using egrep, or longer pipes, or perl for even more complex filters:
find . -type f | egrep '\.(shtml|css)$' find . -type f | perl -lne '/\.shtml|\.css|page\d+\.html$/ and print' It may be somewhat less efficient but that isn't usually a concern, and for more complex stuff it's usually easier to construct and modify.
The standard caveat applies about not using this for files with weird filenames (e.g. containing newlines).
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