find.pl is a lightweight, flexible, and powerful command-line utility written in Perl that replicates and extends the behavior of Unix's native find command. With support for symbolic link traversal, depth-limited search, advanced expression parsing, and file metadata inspection, it's ideal for power users, sysadmins, and developers needing fine-grained control over file discovery tasks.

find.pl is a feature-rich file search tool for Unix-like systems built using Perl. It walks a directory hierarchy, evaluating logical expressions to locate files and directories based on their name, permissions, type, size, and other attributes. It supports a wide range of tests, actions, and logical operators, offering a familiar and powerful alternative to the native find(1) command.

• 🔎 Expression-based matching: Combine filters like -name, -mtime, -size, and -perm.
• ⛓️ Symbolic link traversal: Use -L to follow symlinks.
• 📁 Depth control: Limit search with -maxdepth.
• ⚡ Exec actions: Run custom commands on matched files using -exec.
• 🧪 Advanced tests:
  • File age: -atime, -mtime, -ctime
  • Permissions: -perm
  • Ownership: -nouser, -nogroup
  • Type: -type (e.g. files, directories, symlinks)
• 📌 Actions:
  • Print to stdout: -print, -print0
  • Skip directories: -prune
  • File stats output: custom stat_pl helper

perl find.pl [-L] [starting-point] [expression]

Find all .log files modified in the last 2 days:

perl find.pl /var/log -name "*.log" -mtime -2 -print

Find files over 10 MB and display their details:

perl find.pl /data -size +10M -exec stat_pl {} \;

List all empty directories:

perl find.pl . -type d -empty -print

Search case-insensitively for .jpg files under Pictures:

perl find.pl ~/Pictures -iname "*.jpg" -print

Avoid descending into .git directories:

perl find.pl . -path "*.git*" -prune -o -print

• Perl version 5.10 or later
• Compatible with Unix-like environments (Linux, macOS, BSD)
• No external dependencies (pure Perl)

Contributions are welcome!

1. Fork this repository
2. Create a new branch: git checkout -b feature/your-feature
3. Make your changes and test thoroughly
4. Commit and push: git commit -m "Add your feature" then git push origin feature/your-feature
5. Open a pull request

If you'd like to suggest improvements or report bugs, feel free to open an issue.

This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.