List all files in a directory recursively but exclude directories themselves

Question

Simple question, I'm running the following find command:

find . -type d \( -path ./.git -o   \
                  -path ./log -o    \
                  -path ./public -o \
                  -path ./tmp       \) \
                  -prune -o         \
                  -print

To list all the files in my directory, excluding the specified directories.

This works great, however, what I want to also do is exclude any actual directories from the output, so if there is a directory structure as follows:

test
  -- foo.text
  -- bar.text

when I run my command I'd like to see:

./test/foo.text
./test/bar.text

instead of:

.
./test
./test/foo.text
./test/bar.text

Can anybody help?

Title does not match content. – ctrl-alt-delor Apr 06 '19 at 21:57 — ctrl-alt-delor, Apr 06 '19 at 21:57

score 16 · Answer 1 · answered May 23 '13 at 19:07

16

find . -type f

will do it. You can do exec if you want to operate on file names.

answered May 23 '13 at 19:07

unxnut

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yes, but I need to exclude all files under certain directories. – TheDelChop May 23 '13 at 19:40
`-type f` is for _regular_ files. _directories_ and _regular files_ are 2 of many different types of files on Unix. With `-type f`, you're excluding directories, but also all the other types of files like symlinks, sockets, fifos, devices, doors... – Stéphane Chazelas May 23 '13 at 20:07
@StéphaneChazelas, *doors*? – user1717828 Feb 19 '16 at 19:43
@user1717828, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doors_%28computing%29 – Stéphane Chazelas Feb 19 '16 at 20:12

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered May 23 '13 at 20:09

7

Just use ! -type d:

find . -type d \( -path ./.git -o \
                  -path ./log -o \
                  -path ./public -o \
                  -path ./tmp \) -prune -o \
       ! -type d -print

answered May 23 '13 at 20:09

Stéphane Chazelas

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dougBTV · Answer 3 · 2013-05-23T19:36:43.877

1

Here's one way to do it. I'm piping your output from find (using xargs) to a little bit of bash which asks the question "Is this not a directory?" and if it's not, it echoes it to your terminal.

Here's the whole she-bang:

find . -type d $ -path ./.git -o -path ./log -o -path ./public -o -path ./tmp $ -prune -o -print | xargs -i bash -c 'if [ ! -d "{}" ]; then echo "{}"; fi'

Here's just my addition:

xargs -i bash -c 'if [ ! -d "{}" ]; then echo "{}"; fi'

To explain:

xargs -i replace string "{}" with arguments (those that are piped in)

bash -c commands read from string

if [ ! -d "{}"]; is this a directory.

echo "{}" echo the find result.

fi; finish if.

edited May 23 '13 at 19:36

answered May 23 '13 at 19:24

dougBTV

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There, you're turning the filename into shell code. Typical privilege escalation path. As one can create a file called `$(do-what-I-want)` for instance to have _you_ do what he wants. – Stéphane Chazelas May 23 '13 at 20:12
This is a cool workaround when one not knowing how to use `-o ! -type d`. Cool trick! – azbarcea Aug 13 '20 at 22:16

List all files in a directory recursively but exclude directories themselves

3 Answers3