find with -exec for actions in Linux CLI - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Using find with -exec for Actions

📖 Scenario: You are managing files in a folder on your Linux system. You want to find certain files and perform actions on them automatically.

🎯 Goal: Learn how to use the find command with the -exec option to search for files and run commands on each found file.

📋 What You'll Learn

Use the find command to locate files

Use the -exec option to run commands on found files

Understand how to use placeholders like {} in -exec

Print the results of the commands run on the files

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

System administrators often need to find files and run commands on them automatically, like cleaning up logs or checking file contents.

💼 Career

Knowing how to use find with -exec is a key skill for Linux system management and automation tasks.

1

Create a test directory with files

Create a directory called test_dir and inside it create three empty files named file1.txt, file2.log, and file3.txt.

Linux CLI

# Create directory test_dir and three files inside
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use mkdir to make a directory and touch to create empty files.

2

Set up a command to count lines

Create a variable called count_cmd and set it to the command wc -l which counts lines in a file.

Linux CLI

mkdir test_dir
touch test_dir/file1.txt test_dir/file2.log test_dir/file3.txt

# Set count_cmd to 'wc -l'
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Assign the string 'wc -l' to the variable count_cmd.

3

Use find with -exec to count lines in .txt files

Use the find command to search in test_dir for files ending with .txt and use -exec to run the command stored in count_cmd on each file. Use {} as a placeholder for the filename and end the -exec command with \;.

Linux CLI

mkdir test_dir
touch test_dir/file1.txt test_dir/file2.log test_dir/file3.txt
count_cmd='wc -l'

# Use find with -exec to run $count_cmd on *.txt files
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use find test_dir -name '*.txt' -exec $count_cmd {} \; to run the command on each .txt file.

4

Display the output of the find command

Run the find command with -exec as before and print its output to see the line counts for each .txt file.

Linux CLI

mkdir test_dir
touch test_dir/file1.txt test_dir/file2.log test_dir/file3.txt
count_cmd='wc -l'

# Run find with -exec and print the output
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The output should show zero lines for each .txt file since they are empty.