find finds files.

find [-PLH] start-location[s] -test-option test-condition -action-option


Options

[-PLH] control handling of symbolic links.

-P  (default), do not follow a symbolic link. Process the link file as a file.
    Assume you have a homepage.html under public_html which is a symbolic link 
      to storage on the babbage system.

    If you log into hopper, and run
    find . -name homepage.html
    You should get no match. 

-L  Follow the link if it to a directory. Circularly linked names 

    If you log into hopper, and run
    find -L . -name homepage.html
    You will find a match.

    But it can cause problems if link is circular.
    Let say, on hopper, you have managed to symbolically linked dira to dir1 
     and dira to dir1.

    You will get an error/warning :
    find: `./dir1': Too many levels of symbolic links
    find: `./dira': Too many levels of symbolic links

-H Follow link but only if it named as a start-location.



Start point[s] for search

start-location[s] - list of one or more top level directories 
   to search in.

Search will traverse every child directory under top level directory,
  unless permissions block.
    or
  unless -prune used. 

If no start-location used, current directory . assumed.

If absolute path specified, absolute path will be used in result.

find $HOME -name "*.c"
will generate a list any files with a .c extension. The list will
include the absolute path.


Test conditions