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BFS(1) General Commands Manual BFS(1) NAME bfs - breadth-first search for your files SYNOPSIS bfs [flags...] [paths...] [expression...] flags (-H/-L/-P etc.), paths, and expressions may be freely mixed in any order. DESCRIPTION bfs is a breadth-first version of the UNIX find(1) command. bfs supports almost every feature from every major find(1) implementation, so your existing command lines should work as-is. It also adds some fea- tures of its own, such as a more forgiving command line parser and some ad- ditional options. Each path specified on the command line is treated as a starting path to search through. If no paths are specified, the current directory (.) is searched by default. Like find(1), bfs interprets its arguments as a short-circuiting Boolean expression. For example, bfs \( -name '*.txt' -or -lname '*.txt' \) -and -print will print all the paths that are either .txt files or symbolic links to .txt files. -and is implied between two consecutive expressions, so this is equivalent: bfs \( -name '*.txt' -or -lname '*.txt' \) -print Finally, -print is implied if no actions are specified, so this too is equivalent: bfs -name '*.txt' -or -lname '*.txt' Most options that take a numeric argument N will also accept -N or +N. -N means "less than N," and +N means "greater than N." FLAGS -H Follow symbolic links on the command line, but not while searching. -L Follow all symbolic links. -P Never follow symbolic links (the default). -E Use extended regular expressions (same as -regextype posix-ex- tended). -X Filter out files with non-xargs(1)-safe names. -d Search in post-order (same as -depth). -s Visit directory entries in sorted order. The sorting takes place within each directory separately, which makes it different from bfs ... | sort, but still provides a deterministic ordering. -x Don't descend into other mount points (same as -xdev). -f PATH Treat PATH as a path to search (useful if it begins with a dash). -D FLAG Turn on a debugging flag (see -D help). -ON Enable optimization level N (default: 3). -O0 Disable all optimizations. -O1 Basic logical simplifications. -O2 All -O1 optimizations, plus dead code elimination and data flow analysis. -O3 All -O2 optimizations, plus re-order expressions to reduce expected cost. -O4/-Ofast All optimizations, including aggressive optimizations that may alter the observed behavior in corner cases. -S bfs|dfs|ids|eds Choose the search strategy. bfs Breadth-first search (the default). dfs Depth-first search. Uses less memory than breadth-first search, but is typically slower to return relevant results. ids Iterative deepening search. Performs repeated depth-first searches with increasing depth limits. This gives results in the same order as breadth-first search, but with the reduced memory consumption of depth-first search. Tends to be very slow in practice, so use it only if you absolutely need breadth-first ordering, but -S bfs consumes too much memory. eds Exponential deepening search. A compromise between breadth- and depth-first search, which searches exponentially increas- ing depth ranges (e.g. 0-1, 1-2, 2-4, 4-8, etc.). Provides many of the benefits of breadth-first search with depth- first's reduced memory consumption. Typically far faster than -S ids. -jN Search with N threads in parallel (default: number of CPUs, up to 8). OPERATORS ( expression ) Parentheses are used for grouping expressions together. You'll probably have to write \( expression \) to avoid the parentheses be- ing interpreted by the shell. ! expression -not expression The "not" operator: returns the negation of the truth value of the expression. You may have to write \! expression to avoid ! being interpreted by the shell. expression expression expression -a expression expression -and expression Short-circuiting "and" operator: if the left-hand expression is true, returns the right-hand expression; otherwise, returns false. expression -o expression expression -or expression Short-circuiting "or" operator: if the left-hand expression is false, returns the right-hand expression; otherwise, returns true. expression , expression The "comma" operator: evaluates the left-hand expression but dis- cards the result, returning the right-hand expression. SPECIAL FORMS -exclude expression Exclude all paths matching the expression from the search. This is more powerful than -prune, because it applies even when the expres- sion wouldn't otherwise be evaluated, due to -depth or -mindepth for example. Exclusions are always applied before other expressions, so it may be least confusing to put them first on the command line. -help --help Print usage information, and exit immediately (without parsing the rest of the command line or processing any files). -version --version Print version information, and exit immediately. OPTIONS -color -nocolor Turn colors on or off (default: -color if outputting to a terminal, -nocolor otherwise). -daystart Measure time relative to the start of today. -depth Search in post-order (descendents first). -follow Follow all symbolic links (same as -L). -files0-from FILE Treat the NUL ('\0')-separated paths in FILE as starting points for the search. Pass -files0-from - to read the paths from standard in- put. -ignore_readdir_race -noignore_readdir_race Whether to report an error if bfs detects that the file tree is mod- ified during the search (default: -noignore_readdir_race). -maxdepth N -mindepth N Ignore files deeper/shallower than N. -mount Exclude mount points entirely from the results. -noerror Ignore any errors that occur during traversal. -nohidden Exclude hidden files and directories. -noleaf Ignored; for compatibility with GNU find. -regextype TYPE Use TYPE-flavored regular expressions. The possible types are posix-basic POSIX basic regular expressions (the default). posix-extended POSIX extended regular expressions. ed Like ed(1) (same as posix-basic). emacs Like emacs(1). grep Like grep(1). sed Like sed(1) (same as posix-basic). See regex(7) for a description of regular expression syntax. -status Display a status bar while searching. -unique Skip any files that have already been seen. Particularly useful along with -L. -warn -nowarn Turn on or off warnings about the command line. -xdev Don't descend into other mount points. Unlike -mount, the mount point itself is still included. TESTS -acl Find files with a non-trivial Access Control List (acl(5)). -amin [-+]N -Bmin [-+]N -cmin [-+]N -mmin [-+]N Find files accessed/Birthed/changed/modified N minutes ago. -anewer FILE -Bnewer FILE -cnewer FILE -mnewer FILE Find files accessed/Birthed/changed/modified more recently than FILE was modified. -asince TIME -Bsince TIME -csince TIME -msince TIME Find files accessed/Birthed/changed/modified more recently than the ISO 8601-style timestamp TIME. See -newerXY for examples of the timestamp format. -atime [-+]N -Btime [-+]N -ctime [-+]N -mtime [-+]N Find files accessed/Birthed/changed/modified N days ago. -capable Find files with POSIX.1e capabilities(7) set. -context GLOB Find files whose SELinux context matches the GLOB. -depth [-+]N Find files with depth N. -empty Find empty files/directories. -executable -readable -writable Find files the current user can execute/read/write. -false -true Always false/true. -flags [-+]FLAGS Find files with matching inode FLAGS. -fstype TYPE Find files on file systems with the given TYPE. -gid [-+]N -uid [-+]N Find files owned by group/user ID N. -group NAME -user NAME Find files owned by the group/user NAME. -hidden Find hidden files (those beginning with .). -ilname GLOB -iname GLOB -ipath GLOB -iregex REGEX -iwholename GLOB Case-insensitive versions of -lname/-name/-path/-regex/-wholename. -inum [-+]N Find files with inode number N. -links [-+]N Find files with N hard links. -lname GLOB Find symbolic links whose target matches the GLOB. -name GLOB Find files whose name matches the GLOB. -newer FILE Find files newer than FILE. -newerXY REFERENCE Find files whose X time is newer than the Y time of REFERENCE. X and Y can be any of [aBcm] (access/Birth/change/modification). Y may also be t to parse REFERENCE as an ISO 8601-style timestamp. For example: * 1991-12-14 * 1991-12-14T03:00 * 1991-12-14T03:00-07:00 * '1991-12-14 10:00Z' -nogroup -nouser Find files owned by nonexistent groups/users. -path GLOB -wholename GLOB Find files whose entire path matches the GLOB. -perm [-+/]MODE Find files with a matching mode. -regex REGEX Find files whose entire path matches the regular expression REGEX. -samefile FILE Find hard links to FILE. -since TIME Find files modified since the ISO 8601-style timestamp TIME. See -newerXY for examples of the timestamp format. -size [-+]N[cwbkMGTP] Find files with the given size. The unit can be one of * chars (1 byte) * words (2 bytes) * blocks (512 bytes, the default) * kiB (1024 bytes) * MiB (1024 kiB) * GiB (1024 MiB) * TiB (1024 GiB) * PiB (1024 TiB) -sparse Find files that occupy fewer disk blocks than expected. -type [bcdlpfswD] Find files of the given type. The possible types are * block device * character device * directory * link (symbolic) * pipe * file (regular) * socket * whiteout * Door Multiple types can be given at once, separated by commas. For exam- ple, -type d,f matches both directories and regular files. -used [-+]N Find files last accessed N days after they were changed. -xattr Find files with extended attributes (xattr(7)). -xattrname NAME Find files with the extended attribute NAME. -xtype [bcdlpfswD] Find files of the given type, following links when -type would not, and vice versa. ACTIONS -delete -rm Delete any found files (implies -depth). -exec command ... {} ; Execute a command. -exec command ... {} + Execute a command with multiple files at once. -ok command ... {} ; Prompt the user whether to execute a command. -execdir command ... {} ; -execdir command ... {} + -okdir command ... {} ; Like -exec/-ok, but run the command in the same directory as the found file(s). -exit [STATUS] Exit immediately with the given status (0 if unspecified). -fls FILE -fprint FILE -fprint0 FILE -fprintf FILE FORMAT Like -ls/-print/-print0/-printf, but write to FILE instead of stan- dard output. -limit N Quit once this action is evaluated N times. -ls List files like ls -dils. -print Print the path to the found file. -print0 Like -print, but use the null character ('\0') as a separator rather than newlines. Useful in conjunction with xargs -0. -printf FORMAT Print according to a format string (see find(1)). These additional format directives are supported: %w The file's birth time, in the same format as %a/%c/%t. %Wk Field k of the file's birth time, in the same format as %Ak/%Ck/%Tk. -printx Like -print, but escape whitespace and quotation characters, to make the output safe for xargs(1). Consider using -print0 and xargs -0 instead. -prune Don't descend into this directory. This has no effect if -depth is enabled (either explicitly, or implicitly by -delete). Use -exclude instead in that case. -quit Quit immediately. ENVIRONMENT Certain environment variables affect the behavior of bfs. LANG LC_* Specifies the locale(7) in use for various things. bfs is not (yet) translated to any languages except English, but the locale will still affect the format of printed values. Yes/no prompts (e.g. from -ok) will also be interpreted according to the current locale. LS_COLORS BFS_COLORS Controls the colors used when displaying file paths if -color is en- abled. bfs interprets LS_COLORS the same way GNU ls(1) does (see dir_colors(5)). BFS_COLORS can be used to customize bfs without af- fecting other commands. NO_COLOR Causes bfs to default to -nocolor if it is set (see https://no- color.org/). PAGER Specifies the pager used for -help output. Defaults to less(1), if found on the current PATH, otherwise more(1). PATH Used to resolve executables for -exec[dir] and -ok[dir]. POSIXLY_CORRECT Makes bfs conform more strictly to the POSIX.1-2017 specification for find(1). Currently this has two effects: * Disables warnings by default, because POSIX prohibits writing to standard error (except for the -ok prompt), unless the command also fails with a non-zero exit status. * Makes -ls and -fls use 512-byte blocks instead of 1024-byte blocks. (POSIX does not specify these actions, but BSD find(1) implementations use 512-byte blocks, while GNU find(1) uses 1024-byte blocks by default.) It does not disable bfs's various extensions to the base POSIX func- tionality. POSIXLY_CORRECT has the same effects on GNU find(1). EXAMPLES bfs With no arguments, bfs prints all files under the current directory in breadth-first order. bfs -name '*.txt' Prints all the .txt files under the current directory. *.txt is quoted to ensure the glob is processed by bfs rather than the shell. bfs -name access_log -L /var Finds all files named access_log under /var, following symbolic links. bfs allows flags and paths to appear anywhere on the command line. bfs ~ -not -user $USER Prints all files in your home directory not owned by you. bfs -xtype l Finds broken symbolic links. bfs -name config -exclude -name .git Finds all files named config, skipping every .git directory. bfs -type f -executable -exec strip {} + Runs strip(1) on all executable files it finds, passing it multiple files at a time. BUGS https://github.com/tavianator/bfs/issues AUTHOR Tavian Barnes <tavianator@tavianator.com> https://tavianator.com/projects/bfs.html SEE ALSO find(1), locate(1), xargs(1) bfs 4.1.4 2026-06-29 BFS(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | FLAGS | OPERATORS | SPECIAL FORMS | OPTIONS | TESTS | ACTIONS | ENVIRONMENT | EXAMPLES | BUGS | AUTHOR | SEE ALSO
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