File::Find::Rule::Procedural(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation File::Find::Rule::Procedural(3)

# [NAME](#NAME)

File::Find::Rule::Procedural - File::Find::Rule's procedural interface

# [SYNOPSIS](#SYNOPSIS)

```
  use File::Find::Rule;
  # find all .pm files, procedurally
  my @files = find(file => name => '*.pm', in => \@INC);
```

# [DESCRIPTION](#DESCRIPTION)

In addition to the regular object-oriented interface, File::Find::Rule provides two subroutines for you to use.

[find( @clauses )](#find%28)

[rule( @clauses )](#rule%28)

"find" and "rule" can be used to invoke any methods available to the OO version. "rule" is a synonym for "find"

Passing more than one value to a clause is done with an anonymous array:

```
 my $finder = find( name => [ '*.mp3', '*.ogg' ] );
```

"find" and "rule" both return a File::Find::Rule instance, unless one of the arguments is "in", in which case it returns a list of things that match the rule.

```
 my @files = find( name => [ '*.mp3', '*.ogg' ], in => $ENV{HOME} );
```

Please note that "in" will be the last clause evaluated, and so this code will search for mp3s regardless of size.

```
 my @files = find( name => '*.mp3', in => $ENV{HOME}, size => '<2k' );
                                                    ^
                                                    |
               Clause processing stopped here ------/
```

It is also possible to invert a single rule by prefixing it with "!" like so:

```
 # large files that aren't videos
 my @files = find( file    =>
                   '!name' => [ '*.avi', '*.mov' ],
                   size    => '>20M',
                   in      => $ENV{HOME} );
```

# [AUTHOR](#AUTHOR)

Richard Clamp &lt;richardc@unixbeard.net&gt;

# [COPYRIGHT](#COPYRIGHT)

Copyright (C) 2003 Richard Clamp. All Rights Reserved.

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

# [SEE ALSO](#SEE_ALSO)

File::Find::Rule

2026-10-26 perl v5.44.0

---

Document: File::Find::Rule::Procedural(3pm) from perl-file-find-rule 0.35-r4 (Chainguard OS)
Source: https://cpan.metacpan.org/authors/id/R/RC/RCLAMP/File-Find-Rule-0.35.tar.gz