How to view hidden files using Linux `find` command

Question

On a Linux server, I need to find all files with a certain file extension in the current directory and all sub-directories.

Previously, I have always used the following command:

find . -type f | grep -i *.php

However, it doesn't find hidden files, for example .myhiddenphpfile.php. The following finds the hidden php files, but not the non-hidden ones:

find . -type f | grep -i \.*.php

How can I find both the hidden and non-hidden php files in the same command?

You know that the "re" in "grep" stands for "regular expression", right? I have no clue how either of those command lines are supposed to work... — Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams, May 06 '10 at 07:56

score 26 · Accepted Answer · answered May 06 '10 at 07:53

26

...

find . -type f -name '*.php'

answered May 06 '10 at 07:53

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

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Any recursive option? This doesn't seem to be going into subdirectories where I ran the command. I don't know what directory the file is in. – wheelerswebservices Feb 05 '20 at 22:39
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What if I want both files and directories that may be hidden or not? – Rodrigo Mar 29 '20 at 17:34

score 8 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 04 '16 at 16:51

8

It's better to use iname (case insensitive).

I use this find command to search hidden files:

find /path -type f -iname ".*" -ls

Extracted from: http://www.sysadmit.com/2016/03/linux-ver-archivos-ocultos.html

answered Mar 04 '16 at 16:51

NewMailpeter

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score 1 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 06 '17 at 09:29

The issue is grep, not the find (try just find . -type f to see what I mean).

If you don't quote the * then the shell will expand it - before grep even sees its command line arguments; since the shell doesn't find hidden files by default, you'll have issues.

The reason it's only finding the hidden file is because the shell has already expanded the * and so grep is only matching that one file.

How to view hidden files using Linux `find` command

3 Answers3

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