Using `find` for multiple file extensions

I am using the following command for counting the lines of text in JAVA files:

find . -name '*.java' | xargs wc -l

How can I modify the find command parameters to match more than one file extension? For example, I would like use the above operation for CPP, C, and H files.

2

5 Answers

Use the -o option for an OR. For example, this would list .cpp, .c and .h files:

find . -name \*.cpp -o -name \*.c -o -name \*.h

3

You will need to use the -o option. For example the statement below finds all png, jpg and gif files in a folder.

find . \( -iname \*.png -o -iname \*.jpg -o -iname \*.gif \)

I use the -iname option so that the match is case insensitive.

1

$ find /path/ -name '*.cpp' -or -name '*.c' -or -name '*.h'

The “-or” says I’m looking for either/both of two sets.

I recently wrote a quick guide to using find with boolean operators here:

While all answers are more or less the same, I don't find them readable with multiple name and Boolean operators in-between.

I think this may be more elegant solution:

$ find . -type f | grep -E "\.java$|\.cpp$|\.c$"

Let's break this up

• find . finds all files recursively in current path (change to some other path if you need)
• -type fnarrows the search only to files (not too much of a speed gain, but still...)
• | grep -E I used this to get grep recognize or (|) operator in Mac OS X which uses FreeBSD grep, GNU grep does not need that (check in your man file).
• "\.java$|\.cpp$|\.c$" regular expression which includes files whose name ends with .java, .cpp, and .c (add ones you need)

You can then pipe the resulting list for further processing, e.g.

$ find . -type f | grep -E "\.java$|\.cpp$|\.c$" | xargs sed -i '' $'/s/\r$//'

This example removes DOS/Windows CRLF line ending for OS X/Linux LF (this is also OS X sed syntax, check for your version specifics).

2

Use

find path/to/dir -name "*.ext1" -o -name "*.ext2"

Explanation

1. The first parameter is the directory you want to search.
2. By default find does recursion.
3. The -o stands for -or. So above means search for this wildcard OR this one. If you have only one pattern then no need for -o.
4. The quotes around the wildcard pattern are required.

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