How to find inode number using "find" command?

Question

How do you find the inode number of the name of files that start with a particular keyword like "test"?

We'll assume that there are files called: test, test1, test2.

Solution 1

Try doing this (requires cygwin or such):

find . -type f -name 'test*' -printf '%p %i\n'

See

man find | less +/'-printf format'

Notes :

• %p stands for file path
• %i stands for inode number

Solution 2

There are a couple of ways to do this with find.

find . -iname 'test*' -type f -exec ls -i {} \;

find : the find command
. : the directory to search
-iname 'test*' : search for anything that matches test* regardless of case
-type f : only look for files
-exec ls -i {} \; : execute ls -i on each file found

find . -iname 'test*' -type f -printf '%i %f\n'

find : the find command
. : the directory to search
-iname 'test*' : search for anything that matches test* regardless of case
-type f : only look for files
-printf '%i %f\n' - print the inode, then the file's name only (no directories), and separate each file by a newline

Notes:

• Substitute -iname for -name if you want to be case sensitive.
• Substitute . with the absolute path if you want to search anything other than the current working directory.
• Substitute %f with %p for the file's name, including the path (differs whether you use relative or absolute paths in your find command).
• If you would like to be selective in your directories, don't forget the parameters -prune and -depth
• You can be more specific with your string and do something like 'test[0-9]' to find everything test0-test9, or 'test[0-9]*' for anything with the string "test", then one digit, anything after that.

Comments

[user]

+1 for not parsing ls output

[Hallaghan]

When using a BSD system, GNU find must be installed. E.g. in FreeBSD pkg install findutils then use gfind.