bfs(1)

breadth-first search for your files

Section 1 bfs bookworm source

Description

BFS

NAME

bfs - breadth-first search for your files

SYNOPSIS

bfs [flags...] [paths...] [expression...]

flags (-H/-L/-P etc.), paths, and expressions may be freely mixed in any order.

DESCRIPTION

bfs is a breadth-first version of the UNIX find(1) command.

bfs supports almost every feature from every major find(1) implementation, so your existing command lines should work as-is. It also adds some features of its own, such as a more forgiving command line parser and some additional options.

Each path specified on the command line is treated as a starting path to search through. If no paths are specified, the current directory (.) is searched by default.

Like find(1), bfs interprets its arguments as a short-circuiting Boolean expression. For example,

bfs $ -name ’*.txt’ -or -lname ’*.txt’ $ -and -print

will print the all the paths that are either .txt files or symbolic links to .txt files. -and is implied between two consecutive expressions, so this is equivalent:

bfs $ -name ’*.txt’ -or -lname ’*.txt’ $ -print

Finally, -print is implied if no actions are specified, so this too is equivalent:

bfs -name ’*.txt’ -or -lname ’*.txt’

Most options that take a numeric argument N will also accept -N or +N. -N means "less than N," and +N means "greater than N."

FLAGS

	-H		Follow symbolic links on the command line, but not while searching.
	-L		Follow all symbolic links.
	-P		Never follow symbolic links (the default).
	-E		Use extended regular expressions (same as -regextype posix-extended).
	-X		Filter out files with non-xargs(1)-safe names.
	-d		Search in post-order (same as -depth).
	-s		Visit directory entries in sorted order. The sorting takes place within each directory separately, which makes it different from bfs ... \| sort, but still provides a deterministic ordering.
	-x		Don’t descend into other mount points (same as -xdev).

-f PATH

Treat PATH as a path to search (useful if it begins with a dash).

-D FLAG

Turn on a debugging flag (see -D help).

-ON

Enable optimization level N (default: 3).

	-O0		Disable all optimizations.
	-O1		Basic logical simplifications.
	-O2		All -O1 optimizations, plus dead code elimination and data flow analysis.
	-O3		All -O2 optimizations, plus re-order expressions to reduce expected cost.

-O4/-Ofast

All optimizations, including aggressive optimizations that may alter the observed behavior in corner cases.

-S bfs|dfs|ids|eds

Choose the search strategy.

	bfs		Breadth-first search (the default).
	dfs		Depth-first search. Uses less memory than breadth-first search, but is typically slower to return relevant results.
	ids		Iterative deepening search. Performs repeated depth-first searches with increasing depth limits. This gives results in the same order as breadth-first search, but with the reduced memory consumption of depth-first search. Tends to be very slow in practice, so use it only if you absolutely need breadth-first ordering, but -S bfs consumes too much memory.
	eds		Exponential deepening search. A compromise between breadth- and depth-first search, which searches exponentially increasing depth ranges (e.g 0-1, 1-2, 2-4, 4-8, etc.). Provides many of the benefits of breadth-first search with depth-first’s reduced memory consumption. Typically far faster than -S ids.

OPERATORS

( expression )

Parentheses are used for grouping expressions together. You’ll probably have to write $ expression $ to avoid the parentheses being interpreted by the shell.

! expression
-not expression

The "not" operator: returns the negation of the truth value of the expression. You may have to write \! expression to avoid ! being interpreted by the shell.

expression expression
expression -a expression
expression -and expression

Short-circuiting "and" operator: if the left-hand expression is true, returns the right-hand expression; otherwise, returns false.

expression -o expression
expression -or expression

Short-circuiting "or" operator: if the left-hand expression is false, returns the right-hand expression; otherwise, returns true.

expression , expression

The "comma" operator: evaluates the left-hand expression but discards the result, returning the right-hand expression.

SPECIAL FORMS

-exclude expression

Exclude all paths matching the expression from the search. This is more powerful than -prune, because it applies even when the expression wouldn’t otherwise be evaluated, due to -depth or -mindepth for example. Exclusions are always applied before other expressions, so it may be least confusing to put them first on the command line.

OPTIONS

-color
-nocolor

Turn colors on or off (default: -color if outputting to a terminal, -nocolor otherwise).

-daystart

Measure time relative to the start of today.

-depth

Search in post-order (descendents first).

-follow

Follow all symbolic links (same as -L).

-files0-from FILE

Treat the NUL (’\0’)-separated paths in FILE as starting points for the search. Pass -files0-from - to read the paths from standard input.

-ignore_readdir_race
-noignore_readdir_race

Whether to report an error if bfs detects that the file tree is modified during the search (default: -noignore_readdir_race).

-maxdepth N
-mindepth N

Ignore files deeper/shallower than N.

-mount

Don’t descend into other mount points (same as -xdev for now, but will skip mount points entirely in the future).

-nohidden

Exclude hidden files and directories.

-noleaf

Ignored; for compatibility with GNU find.

-regextype TYPE

Use TYPE-flavored regexes (default: posix-basic; see -regextype help).

-status

Display a status bar while searching.

-unique

Skip any files that have already been seen. Particularly useful along with -L.

-warn
-nowarn

Turn on or off warnings about the command line.

-xdev

Don’t descend into other mount points.

TESTS

-acl

Find files with a non-trivial Access Control List (acl(5)).

-amin [-+]N
-Bmin [-+]N
-cmin [-+]N
-mmin [-+]N

Find files accessed/Birthed/changed/modified N minutes ago.

-anewer FILE
-Bnewer FILE
-cnewer FILE
-mnewer FILE

Find files accessed/Birthed/changed/modified more recently than FILE was modified.

-asince TIME
-Bsince TIME
-csince TIME
-msince TIME

Find files accessed/Birthed/changed/modified more recently than the ISO 8601-style timestamp TIME. See -newerXY for examples of the timestamp format.

-atime [-+]N
-Btime [-+]N
-ctime [-+]N
-mtime [-+]N

Find files accessed/Birthed/changed/modified N days ago.

-capable

Find files with POSIX.1e capabilities(7) set.

-depth [-+]N

Find files with depth N.

-empty

Find empty files/directories.

-executable
-readable
-writable

Find files the current user can execute/read/write.

-false
-true

Always false/true.

-fstype TYPE

Find files on file systems with the given TYPE.

-gid [-+]N
-uid [-+]N

Find files owned by group/user ID N.

-group NAME
-user NAME

Find files owned by the group/user NAME.

-hidden

Find hidden files (those beginning with .).

-ilname GLOB
-iname GLOB
-ipath GLOB
-iregex REGEX
-iwholename GLOB

Case-insensitive versions of -lname/-name/-path/-regex/-wholename.

-inum [-+]N

Find files with inode number N.

-links [-+]N

Find files with N hard links.

-lname GLOB

Find symbolic links whose target matches the GLOB.

-name GLOB

Find files whose name matches the GLOB.

-newer FILE

Find files newer than FILE.

-newerXY REFERENCE

Find files whose X time is newer than the Y time of REFERENCE. X and Y can be any of [aBcm] (access/Birth/change/modification). Y may also be t to parse REFERENCE as an ISO 8601-style timestamp. For example:

1991-12-14
1991-12-14T03:00
1991-12-14T03:00-07:00
1991-12-14T10:00Z

-nogroup
-nouser

Find files owned by nonexistent groups/users.

-path GLOB
-wholename GLOB

Find files whose entire path matches the GLOB.

-perm [-]MODE

Find files with a matching mode.

-regex REGEX

Find files whose entire path matches the regular expression REGEX.

-samefile FILE

Find hard links to FILE.

-since TIME

Find files modified since the ISO 8601-style timestamp TIME. See -newerXY for examples of the timestamp format.

-size [-+]N[cwbkMGTP]

Find files with the given size, in 1-byte characters, 2-byte words, 512-byte blocks (default), or kiB/MiB/GiB/TiB/PiB.

-sparse

Find files that occupy fewer disk blocks than expected.

-type [bcdlpfswD]

Find files of the given type. Possible types are block device, character device, directory, symbolic link, pipe, regular file, socket, whiteout, and Door.

-used [-+]N

Find files last accessed N days after they were changed.

-xattr

Find files with extended attributes (xattr(7)).

-xattrname NAME

Find files with the extended attribute NAME.

-xtype [bcdlpfswD]

Find files of the given type, following links when -type would not, and vice versa.

ACTIONS

-delete
-rm

Delete any found files (implies -depth).

-exec command ... {} ;

Execute a command.

-exec command ... {} +

Execute a command with multiple files at once.

-ok command ... {} ;

Prompt the user whether to execute a command.

-execdir command ... {} ;
-execdir command ... {} +
-okdir command ... {} ;

Like -exec/-ok, but run the command in the same directory as the found file(s).

-exit [STATUS]

Exit immediately with the given status (0 if unspecified).

-fls FILE
-fprint FILE
-fprint0 FILE
-fprintf FILE FORMAT

Like -ls/-print/-print0/-printf, but write to FILE instead of standard output.

-ls

List files like ls -dils.

-print

Print the path to the found file.

-print0

Like -print, but use the null character (’\0’) as a separator rather than newlines. Useful in conjunction with xargs -0.

-printf FORMAT

Print according to a format string (see find(1)). These additional format directives are supported:

	%w		The file’s birth time, in the same format as %a/%c/%t.
	%Wk		Field k of the file’s birth time, in the same format as %Ak/%Ck/%Tk.

-printx

Like -print, but escape whitespace and quotation characters, to make the output safe for xargs(1). Consider using -print0 and xargs -0 instead.

-prune

Don’t descend into this directory.

-quit

Quit immediately.

-version

Print version information.

-help

Print usage information.

ENVIRONMENT

Certain environment variables affect the behavior of bfs.

LANG
LC_*

Specifies the locale(7) in use for various things. bfs is not (yet) translated to any languages except English, but the locale will still affect the format of printed values. Yes/no prompts (e.g. from -ok) will also be interpreted according to the current locale.

LS_COLORS
BFS_COLORS

Controls the colors used when displaying file paths if -color is enabled. bfs interprets LS_COLORS the same way GNU ls(1) does (see dir_colors(5)). BFS_COLORS can be used to customize bfs without affecting other commands.

NO_COLOR

Causes bfs to default to -nocolor if it is set (see https://no-color.org/).

PAGER

Specifies the pager used for -help output. Defaults to more(1).

POSIXLY_CORRECT

Makes bfs conform more strictly to the POSIX.1-2017 specification for find(1). Currently this just disables warnings by default. It does not disable bfs’s various extensions to the base POSIX functionality.

EXAMPLES

bfs

With no arguments, bfs prints all files under the current directory in breadth-first order.

bfs -name ’*.txt’

Prints all the .txt files under the current directory. *.txt is quoted to ensure the glob is processed by bfs rather than the shell.

bfs -name access_log -L /var

Finds all files named access_log under /var, following symbolic links. bfs allows flags and paths to appear anywhere on the command line.

bfs ˜ -not -user $USER

Prints all files in your home directory not owned by you.

bfs -xtype l

Finds broken symbolic links.

bfs -name config -exclude -name .git

Finds all files named config, skipping every .git directory.

bfs -type f -executable -exec strip ’{}’ +

Runs strip(1) on all executable files it finds, passing it multiple files at a time.

BUGS

https://github.com/tavianator/bfs/issues

AUTHOR

Tavian Barnes <tavianator@tavianator.com>

https://tavianator.com/projects/bfs.html