FINDRULE(1p)

💖 FINDRULE 💖

okay bestie, so this is findrule — it lives in the User Contributed Perl Documentation section, it's manual page FINDRULE(1p), and it is literally a command line wrapper for File::Find::Rule. yes. that's the whole vibe. let's get into it 🦋

---

✨ NAME ✨

findrule — command line wrapper to File::Find::Rule

---

🎀 USAGE 🎀

findrule [path...] [expression]

that's it. that's the shape of it. paths, then an expression, and she goes 🫶

---

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

findrule mostly borrows the interface from GNU find(1) so you can get a command-line interface onto the whole File::Find::Rule hierarchy of modules. it's giving "find but make it perl" and honestly? obsessed. 💅

so the syntax for expressions is: the rule name, preceded by a dash, followed by an optional argument. and here's the cute part — if that argument is an opening parenthesis, it gets taken as a list of arguments, terminated by a closing parenthesis. that's how you sneak multiple things in there without it being a whole thing. ✨

some examples, because i know you're a visual learner:

 find -file -name ( foo bar )

that's files named foo or bar, below the current directory. easy. ate. 💖

 find -file -name foo -bar

that's files named foo, that have pubs (for this is what our ficticious bar clause specifies), below the current directory. yes, ficticious. i don't make the rules, i just relay them. 🍓

 find -file -name ( -bar )

that's files named -bar, below the current directory. and listen, this is the important bit: in this case, if we'd have omitted the parenthesis, it would have parsed as a call to name with no arguments, followed by a call to -bar. so like. the parens are not decorative. they are load-bearing. iykyk 😭

---

🌈 Supported switches

i'm very slack. please consult the File::Find::Rule manpage for now, and prepend - to the commands that you want. that's the whole instruction. she's honest about her flaws and i respect it 👑

---

💅 Extra bonus switches

findrule automatically loads all of your installed File::Find::Rule::* extension modules, so check the documentation to see what those would be. surprise features, no cap. 🎁✨

---

🧚 AUTHOR 🧚

Richard Clamp <richardc@unixbeard.net> from a suggestion by Tatsuhiko Miyagawa

(so like. one legend, and one legend who suggested it. iconic collaboration energy fr fr 💜)

---

⭐ COPYRIGHT ⭐

Copyright (C) 2002 Richard Clamp. All Rights Reserved.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

legal bit, don't skip it bestie — same terms as Perl itself, that's the deal 🤝

---

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

• File::Find::Rule

---

and that's the whole page!! go forth and find things, you absolute main character 🌈💖

this gem of a manual page came to you courtesy of perl v5.40.1, dated 2025-12-18, and honestly? she's still slaying ✨👑🦋