Find filenames with variable number of characters

Using Ubuntu.

I have a directory, with some sub directories, which may have some files with names formatted like this:

core.foo.1234
core.bar.65432

So, they all start with 'core'. then a process name, then the PID number, which is usually 4 or 5 digits.

My Python based tool uses two 'find' commands to find them, like this:

the_cmd4 = "find " + directory_name + " -name \"core\.*\.[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]\"";

the_cmd5 = "find " + directory_name + " -name \"core\.*\.[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]\"";

So, this is essentially calling the 'find' tool like this:

find . -name "core.*.[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]" 

There must be a way to specify a 'find' with variable number of number characters - instead of doing it in two steps.

Is there?

Thanks in advance.

Solution 1:

I think you can filter again with grep which supports more powerful RE:

find . -name "core*" | grep "core.*.[0-9]\+"

Solution 2:

A PID is a 16bit value, meaning it can contain 1 to 5 digits. You can use -regex instead of -name:

find FOLDER -regextype sed -regex '.*core\.[0-9]\{1,5\}