How to use -regex in the find command on Linux command line

Question

The objective is to find and list anything with "messages" and/or "error.log" etc.. in the beginning then list both "messages.1..99" and "error.log.1..99" using regular expressions.

This command works for however, it would require me to make many -or searches, but to simplify, I would like to have multiple in a set within the search. Like for instance:

# find /var/log -maxdepth 1 -type f -size +1M -name [messages|error.log|secure.log|kern.log...]?[0-9]|[0-9][0-9] ! -iname "*.gz"

not

# find /var/log -maxdepth 1 -type f -size +1M -name "messages?[0-9]" -o -name "messages?[0-9][0-9]"

How might I perform this command with regular expressions?

# find /var/log -maxdepth 1 -type f -size +1M -name "[messages,error.log,kern,secure]?[0-9]" ! -iname "*.gz"

My attempt with regex doesn't print anything in standard out:

# find /var/log -maxdepth 1 -type f -size +1M -regex -name "[messages,error,kern,secure]?[0-9]" ! -iname "*.gz"

That (the not finding anything) will be for two reasons: a) [messages,error,kern,secure] is a weird character class and not what you think it is and b) there's nothing to match the actually found ./ at the beginning of the file names ... and you can't use -regex -name like that, either — tink
– tink, Commented Aug 18, 2019 at 20:46
regex matches everything, the whole path, you need to match /var/log/ too. — KamilCuk
– KamilCuk, Commented Aug 18, 2019 at 21:02
As your complex query does not work, reduce the complexity! For example, try -name messages instead of -name "[messages,error,kern,secure]?[0-9]". Then you might get the suspicion that you should look up how to use -regex. — hagello
– hagello, Commented Aug 18, 2019 at 21:08

tink · Accepted Answer · 2019-08-18 20:57:53Z

4

Try this:

find /var/log -maxdepth 1 -type f -size +1M -type f -regextype egrep -regex '.*(messages|error|kern|secure)\.[0-9]+.*' -not -name \*gz

answered Aug 18, 2019 at 20:57

tink

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Léa Gris Over a year ago

find /var/log -maxdepth 1 -type f -size +1M -regextype egrep -regex '.*(messages|error|kern|secure)(\.log)?\.[[:digit:]]+.*' -not -name '*gz'

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