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I need to strip the executable flag from all files within a certain directory and sub directories. Right now I'm doing it with a 2 step process

find /dir/ -type f -exec chmod ugo-x {} \;
find /dir/ -type d -exec chmod ugo+rx {} \;

Is it possible to modify the first line so that I can strip exec flag from all non-directory files? Since this needs to be done on a fairly regular basis across a lot of directories and files, I'd prefer not to use a bash script which would slow it down.

wting
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  • Out of curiosity, what exactly doesn't your current command do properly? The `-type f` predicate already selects all files (or equivalently, all non-directory files, since anything that is a file cannot also be a directory). – David Z Sep 26 '10 at 08:56
  • @David: Sockets, FIFOs, symlinks, devices, etc. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Sep 26 '10 at 09:09
  • @Ignacio: Yes, but the question was about files, not all those other non-file things. – David Z Sep 26 '10 at 09:26
  • @David: This is *nix. Everything is a file. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Sep 26 '10 at 09:29
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    @Ignacio: Everything has a filesystem path, sure, but you can't always say that everything is actually a file. Some people do, but others use "file" in the sense of a regular file, i.e. something that would be matched by the `-type f` predicate to `find`. To me, the wording of this question strongly suggested the latter meaning. – David Z Sep 27 '10 at 04:15

1 Answers1

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find ... '!' -type d ...
Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams
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  • Thanks, I didn't realize find had operators. Are the single quotes necessary as I managed to get it to work without them? – wting Sep 26 '10 at 08:31
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    It depends on your shell and its options. bash uses `!` in history expansion, so quoting it in the CLI is a good idea. You probably won't need it in a script though. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Sep 26 '10 at 09:08
  • History expansion is not active in scripts, correct. – Daenyth Sep 26 '10 at 13:28