What does this find command with options mean?

Question

When i run this command in Debian

sudo find . ! -name . -type d -or -type f 

It lists all the files in the current path, but not the directories, so I think I know what it does.

But what does the -name . part do?

All names in the directory? is this a valid use of -name? I don't see this documented in man find.

Also what is the -or doing here? I don't see it listing any directories when i run the command.

thanks

Answer 1

Note the exclamation mark before the -name option, it is interchangable with the -not option. It will behave like a logical NOT and negate the following option.

In this case your command would search for all files and directories, starting from the current directory, with a name that is NOT ..

It basically does the same as find . -name "*" -type d -or -type f would do, with the exception that it won't print the current directory as a search result:

╭─user@machine ~/somedir ‹master●› 
╰─$ find . -name "*" -type d -or -type f               
.
╭─user@machine ~/somedir ‹master●› 
╰─$ find . ! -name . -type d -or -type f               
╭─user@machine ~/somedir ‹master●› 
╰─$