Which command returns all files that end with a single digit and have the TXT extension ?
One of the most basic tools for locating files (or other kinds of nodes) is the find
utility.
find ./ -type f -name '*[!0-9][0-9].txt'
This will search:
- ...recursivly from the current directory (
./
). You could change this to another path or even leave it off since this is the default value for most versions offind
. - ...for items that are files as opposed to directories, devices nodes, symbolic links, etc (
-type f
). You could leave this off if you wanted to find other types too. - ...for items that match the name pattern given. Note that I have used single quotes to encose the pattern so that bash or your shell does not try to expland it to a glob pattern before find even gets the command. The star matches any number of characters, then the end of the file must be something other than a digit, then a digit, then your extention. (
-name '*[0-9].txt'
)
If there are files whose name is only a digit followed by .txt
, the command above will miss them, because it requires one non-digit before the digit. The following equivalent commands use boolean operators to include file names with just a digit as well (-o
is “or” and !
is “not”):
find ./ -type f \( -name '*[!0-9][0-9].txt' -o -name '[0-9].txt' \)
find ./ -type f -name '*[0-9].txt' ! -name '*[0-9][0-9].txt'
Note that this will be case sensitive. If you would like an insensitive match, you can use -iname
instead of -name
to match things like file4.TXT
as well. Also be aware that just because a file claims to be a text file with that extention does not mean it is. On linux any file can be any type no matter the name. There might also be text files with other extentions or with no extention at all.
-
1Note if bash is your shell then you have to escape the
!
too (disabling some history features might also suffice). – dubiousjim Nov 14 '12 at 2:18
Using plain old POSIX globs:
ls -d -- [0-9].txt *[!0-9][0-9].txt
-
3Since the OP asked for a single digit, something like
*[^0-9][0-9].txt
might be a better glob (although that would miss filenames consisting of only a single digit plus .txt. – Ansgar Esztermann Nov 13 '12 at 13:11 -
-
@StephaneChazelas: thanks for the
-d --
, I thought of suggesting these only after posting. As an alternative, as ChrisDown proposes in his answer, one could useprintf '%s\n' YourGlobPattern
instead ofls ...
. – dubiousjim Nov 13 '12 at 13:41
In zsh, with setopt extended_glob
in ~/.zshrc
:
print -lr -- *[0-9].txt~*[0-9][0-9].txt
If your file names don't begin with -
and don't contain \
you can save a bit of typing:
print -l *[0-9].txt~*[0-9][0-9].txt
Replace print -l
by echo
to show the names with spaces between them instead of newlines. Replace print -l
by ls -d
to see the file names formatted by ls
(e.g. in color, depending on your aliases), or by just ls
if none of the matches are directories:
ls *[0-9].txt~*[0-9][0-9].txt
If you want to see files in subdirectories as well, add **/
before the pattern:
ls **/*[0-9].txt~*[0-9][0-9].txt
The Unix command to return the files that ends with single digit and has .txt extension
ls -l *[0-9].txt
filename34.txt
or justfilename4.txt
(single digit) or only file names that are a single digit like4.txt
? Please use the edit function to make your question more specific so we can adapt our answers. Right now everybody is guessing what you want. Some effort from you to explain the situation will help you get better answers. – Caleb Nov 17 '12 at 17:53