How can I get `find` to ignore .svn directories?

Question

why not just

find . -not -iwholename '*.svn*'

The -not predicate negates everything that has .svn anywhere in the path.

So in your case it would be

find -not -iwholename '*.svn*' -name 'messages.*' -exec grep -Iw uint {} + \;

As follows:

find . -path '*/.svn*' -prune -o -print

Or, alternatively based on a directory and not a path prefix:

find . -name .svn -a -type d -prune -o -print

For searching, can I suggest you look at ack ? It's a source-code aware find, and as such will automatically ignore many file types, including source code repository info such as the above.

To ignore .svn, .git and other hidden directories (starting with a dot), try:

find . -type f -not -path '*/\.*'

---

However, if the purpose of using find is searching within the files, you may try to use these commands:

• git grep - specially designed command for searching patterns within the Git repository.
• ripgrep - which by default ignores hidden files and files specified in .gitignore.

Related: How do I find all files containing specific text on Linux?

Here is what I would do in your case:

find . -path .svn -prune -o -name messages.* -exec grep -Iw uint {} +

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Emacs' rgrep built-in command ignores .svn directory, and many more files you're probably not interested in when performing a find | grep. Here is what it uses by default:

find . \( -path \*/SCCS -o -path \*/RCS -o -path \*/CVS -o -path \*/MCVS \
          -o -path \*/.svn -o -path \*/.git -o -path \*/.hg -o -path \*/.bzr \
          -o -path \*/_MTN -o -path \*/_darcs -o -path \*/\{arch\} \) \
     -prune -o \
       \( -name .\#\* -o -name \*.o -o -name \*\~ -o -name \*.bin -o -name \*.lbin \
          -o -name \*.so -o -name \*.a -o -name \*.ln -o -name \*.blg \
          -o -name \*.bbl -o -name \*.elc -o -name \*.lof -o -name \*.glo \
          -o -name \*.idx -o -name \*.lot -o -name \*.fmt -o -name \*.tfm \
          -o -name \*.class -o -name \*.fas -o -name \*.lib -o -name \*.mem \
          -o -name \*.x86f -o -name \*.sparcf -o -name \*.fasl -o -name \*.ufsl \
          -o -name \*.fsl -o -name \*.dxl -o -name \*.pfsl -o -name \*.dfsl \
          -o -name \*.p64fsl -o -name \*.d64fsl -o -name \*.dx64fsl -o -name \*.lo \
          -o -name \*.la -o -name \*.gmo -o -name \*.mo -o -name \*.toc \
          -o -name \*.aux -o -name \*.cp -o -name \*.fn -o -name \*.ky \
          -o -name \*.pg -o -name \*.tp -o -name \*.vr -o -name \*.cps \
          -o -name \*.fns -o -name \*.kys -o -name \*.pgs -o -name \*.tps \
          -o -name \*.vrs -o -name \*.pyc -o -name \*.pyo \) \
     -prune -o \
     -type f \( -name pattern \) -print0 \
     | xargs -0 -e grep -i -nH -e regex

It ignores directories created by most version control systems, as well as generated files for many programming languages. You could create an alias that invokes this command and replace find and grep patterns for your specific problems.

GNU find

find .  ! -regex ".*[/]\.svn[/]?.*"