regex match either string in linux "find" command

Question

I'm trying the following to recursively look for files ending in either .py or .py.server:

$ find -name "stub*.py(|\.server)" 

However this does not work.

I've tried variations like:

$ find -name "stub*.(py|py\.server)" 

They do not work either.

A simple find -name "*.py" does work so how come this regex does not?

Answer 1

Say:

find . \( -name "*.py" -o -name "*.py.server" \) 

Saying so would result in file names matching *.py and *.py.server.

From man find:

   expr1 -o expr2           Or; expr2 is not evaluated if expr1 is true. 

EDIT: If you want to specify a regex, use the -regex option:

find . -type f -regex ".*\.\(py\|py\.server\)" 

Answer 2

Find can take a regular expression pattern:

$ find . -regextype posix-extended -regex '.*[.]py([.]server)?$' -print 

Options:

-regex pattern

File name matches regular expression pattern. This is a match on the whole path, not a search. For example, to match a file named ./fubar3', you can use the regular expression.*bar.' or .*b.*3', but notf.*r3'. The regular expressions understood by find are by default Emacs Regular Expressions, but this can be changed with the -regextype option.

-print True;

print the full file name on the standard output, followed by a newline. If you are piping the output of find into another program and there is the faintest possibility that the files which you are searching for might contain a newline, then you should seriously consider using the -print0 option instead of -print. See the UNUSUAL FILENAMES section for information about how unusual characters in filenames are handled.

-regextype type

Changes the regular expression syntax understood by -regex and -iregex tests which occur later on the command line. Currently-implemented types are emacs (this is the default), posix-awk, posix- basic, posix-egrep and posix-extended.

A clearer description or the options. Don't forgot all the information can be found by reading man find or info find.