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I'm trying to use find with the regex option. However my regular expression only captures the basename of the file. Is there a reference to the "directory find is currently in" I can use in my regular expression so that I don't have to account for it by means of a leading .*?

(I'm looking for something like the $File::Find::dir in perl's File::Find module.)

As an example: suppose I want to find all files matching the regular expression baz\d anywhere below /foo/bar/. Using find /foo/bar -regex 'baz\d' won't find a file named baz1 at /foo/bar/ because the pattern baz\d doesn't match the full filename /foo/bar/baz1, so instead I'm using find /foo/bar -regex '.*baz\d' which works, but I'm wondering whether I can replace that .* with something more robust?

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  • Is this in shell scripting? And can you post the lines you're using now and some example of what you would try to accomplish? The example should make it more clear. – gertvdijk Dec 4 '12 at 20:34
  • @gertvdijk: do you know of another category using find may fall under? – Isaac Kleinman Dec 4 '12 at 20:57
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You can "anchor" the beginning of the filename by including a slash in the regex pattern:

find /foo/bar/ -regex '.*/baz\d'

This will ensure that you only get files like baz1, and not bazbaz1.

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  • I guess that's the best we can do. – Isaac Kleinman Dec 5 '12 at 16:20

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