find -depth ..How to use it ?

UNIX for Beginners Q & A
1

I tried to find a file lives within curent directory only, and typed

$ find  . -depth 1 -ls -name *.ini

But it gave me,

find: paths must precede expression: 1
Usage: find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-Olevel] [-D help|tree|search|stat|rates|opt|exec] [path...] [expression]

How'd I do it correctly ? Thanks in advance.

2

The option -depth does not take a parameter. It means that find should use a depth first method for walking the directory tree. Perhaps you are looking for -maxdepth (GNU find only)?

--
Note: In BSD find also supports -depth with a parameter and then it has a whole different meaning, which is a bit confusing..

3

Probably you want to prevent it from recursion?
Then there is the following work-around for a Unix find

find  . \! -name . -prune -name "*.ini" -ls

A GNU find takes

find  . -maxdepth 1 -name "*.ini" -ls

The *.ini is to be evaluated by the find not the shell, therefore must be quoted. The -ls should follow it, so depends on the previous condition.

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