--- name: "pt-find" section: "1p" platform: "linux" package: "percona-toolkit" version: "3.7.1_4-1" release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01" platforms: ["linux"] url: "https://new.carta.tech/pt-find" --- # pt-find(1p) Find MySQL tables and execute actions, like GNU find. ## NAME pt-find - Find MySQL tables and execute actions, like GNU find. ## SYNOPSIS Usage: pt-find \[OPTIONS\] \[DATABASES\] pt-find searches for MySQL tables and executes actions, like GNU find. The default action is to print the database and table name. Find all tables created more than a day ago, which use the MyISAM engine, and print their names: ``` pt-find --ctime +1 --engine MyISAM ``` Find MyISAM tables and convert them to InnoDB: ``` pt-find --engine MyISAM --exec "ALTER TABLE %D.%N ENGINE=InnoDB" ``` Find tables created by a process that no longer exists, following the name\_sid\_pid naming convention, and remove them. ``` pt-find --connection-id '\D_\d+_(\d+)$' --server-id '\D_(\d+)_\d+$' --exec-plus "DROP TABLE %s" ``` Find empty tables in the test and junk databases, and delete them: ``` pt-find --empty junk test --exec-plus "DROP TABLE %s" ``` Find tables more than five gigabytes in total size: ``` pt-find --tablesize +5G ``` Find all tables and print their total data and index size, and sort largest tables first (sort is a different program, by the way). ``` pt-find --printf "%T\t%D.%N\n" | sort -rn ``` As above, but this time, insert the data back into the database for posterity: ``` pt-find --noquote --exec "INSERT INTO sysdata.tblsize(db, tbl, size) VALUES('%D', '%N', %T)" ``` ## RISKS Percona Toolkit is mature, proven in the real world, and well tested, but all database tools can pose a risk to the system and the database server. Before using this tool, please: - • Read the tool's documentation - • Review the tool's known "BUGS" - • Test the tool on a non-production server - • Backup your production server and verify the backups ## DESCRIPTION pt-find looks for MySQL tables that pass the tests you specify, and executes the actions you specify. The default action is to print the database and table name to STDOUT. pt-find is simpler than GNU find. It doesn't allow you to specify complicated expressions on the command line. pt-find uses SHOW TABLES when possible, and SHOW TABLE STATUS when needed. ## OPTION TYPES There are three types of options: normal options, which determine some behavior or setting; tests, which determine whether a table should be included in the list of tables found; and actions, which do something to the tables pt-find finds. pt-find uses standard Getopt::Long option parsing, so you should use double dashes in front of long option names, unlike GNU find. ## OPTIONS This tool accepts additional command-line arguments. Refer to the "SYNOPSIS" and usage information for details. - \--ask-pass Prompt for a password when connecting to MySQL. - \--\[no\]buffer-stdout default: yes Enables STDOUT buffering. Disable this option if you want to see live progress when using output post-processing tools such as `"tee"` or `"kubectl logs"`. - \--case-insensitive Specifies that all regular expression searches are case-insensitive. - \--charset short form: -A; type: string Default character set. If the value is utf8, sets Perl's binmode on STDOUT to utf8, passes the mysql\_enable\_utf8 option to DBD::mysql, and runs SET NAMES UTF8 after connecting to MySQL. Any other value sets binmode on STDOUT without the utf8 layer, and runs SET NAMES after connecting to MySQL. - \--config type: Array Read this comma-separated list of config files; if specified, this must be the first option on the command line. - \--database short form: -D; type: string Connect to this database. - \--day-start Measure times (for "--mmin", etc) from the beginning of today rather than from the current time. - \--defaults-file short form: -F; type: string Only read mysql options from the given file. You must give an absolute pathname. - \--help Show help and exit. - \--host short form: -h; type: string Connect to host. - \--mysql\_ssl short form: -s; type: int Create SSL MySQL connection. - \--or Combine tests with OR, not AND. By default, tests are evaluated as though there were an AND between them. This option switches it to OR. Option parsing is not implemented by pt-find itself, so you cannot specify complicated expressions with parentheses and mixtures of OR and AND. - \--password short form: -p; type: string Password to use when connecting. If password contains commas they must be escaped with a backslash: "exam\\,ple" - \--pid type: string Create the given PID file. The tool won't start if the PID file already exists and the PID it contains is different than the current PID. However, if the PID file exists and the PID it contains is no longer running, the tool will overwrite the PID file with the current PID. The PID file is removed automatically when the tool exits. - \--port short form: -P; type: int Port number to use for connection. - \--\[no\]quote default: yes Quotes MySQL identifier names with MySQL's standard backtick character. Quoting happens after tests are run, and before actions are run. - \--set-vars type: Array Set the MySQL variables in this comma-separated list of `"variable=value"` pairs. By default, the tool sets: ``` wait_timeout=10000 ``` Variables specified on the command line override these defaults. For example, specifying `"--set-vars wait_timeout=500"` overrides the defaultvalue of `10000`. The tool prints a warning and continues if a variable cannot be set. - \--socket short form: -S; type: string Socket file to use for connection. - \--user short form: -u; type: string User for login if not current user. - \--version Show version and exit. - \--\[no\]version-check default: yes Check for the latest version of Percona Toolkit, MySQL, and other programs. This is a standard "check for updates automatically" feature, with two additional features. First, the tool checks its own version and also the versions of the following software: operating system, Percona Monitoring and Management (PMM), MySQL, Perl, MySQL driver for Perl (DBD::mysql), and Percona Toolkit. Second, it checks for and warns about versions with known problems. For example, MySQL 5.5.25 had a critical bug and was re-released as 5.5.25a. A secure connection to Percona’s Version Check database server is done to perform these checks. Each request is logged by the server, including software version numbers and unique ID of the checked system. The ID is generated by the Percona Toolkit installation script or when the Version Check database call is done for the first time. Any updates or known problems are printed to STDOUT before the tool's normal output. This feature should never interfere with the normal operation of the tool. For more information, visit \. ### TESTS Most tests check some criterion against a column of SHOW TABLE STATUS output. Numeric arguments can be specified as +n for greater than n, -n for less than n, and n for exactly n. All numeric options can take an optional suffix multiplier of k, M or G (1\_024, 1\_048\_576, and 1\_073\_741\_824 respectively). All patterns are Perl regular expressions (see 'man perlre') unless specified as SQL LIKE patterns. Dates and times are all measured relative to the same instant, when pt-find first asks the database server what time it is. All date and time manipulation is done in SQL, so if you say to find tables modified 5 days ago, that translates to SELECT DATE\_SUB(CURRENT\_TIMESTAMP, INTERVAL 5 DAY). If you specify "--day-start", if course it's relative to CURRENT\_DATE instead. However, table sizes and other metrics are not consistent at an instant in time. It can take some time for MySQL to process all the SHOW queries, and pt-find can't do anything about that. These measurements are as of the time they're taken. If you need some test that's not in this list, file a feature request at \. - \--autoinc type: string; group: Tests Table's next AUTO\_INCREMENT is n. This tests the Auto\_increment column. - \--avgrowlen type: size; group: Tests Table avg row len is n bytes. This tests the Avg\_row\_length column. The specified size can be "NULL" to test where Avg\_row\_length IS NULL. - \--checksum type: string; group: Tests Table checksum is n. This tests the Checksum column. - \--cmin type: size; group: Tests Table was created n minutes ago. This tests the Create\_time column. - \--collation type: string; group: Tests Table collation matches pattern. This tests the Collation column. - \--column-name type: string; group: Tests A column name in the table matches pattern. - \--column-type type: string; group: Tests A column in the table matches this type (case-insensitive). Examples of types are: varchar, char, int, smallint, bigint, decimal, year, timestamp, text, enum. - \--comment type: string; group: Tests Table comment matches pattern. This tests the Comment column. - \--connection-id type: string; group: Tests Table name has nonexistent MySQL connection ID. This tests the table name for a pattern. The argument to this test must be a Perl regular expression that captures digits like this: (\\d+). If the table name matches the pattern, these captured digits are taken to be the MySQL connection ID of some process. If the connection doesn't exist according to SHOW FULL PROCESSLIST, the test returns true. If the connection ID is greater than pt-find's own connection ID, the test returns false for safety. Why would you want to do this? If you use MySQL statement-based replication, you probably know the trouble temporary tables can cause. You might choose to work around this by creating real tables with unique names, instead of temporary tables. One way to do this is to append your connection ID to the end of the table, thusly: scratch\_table\_12345. This assures the table name is unique and lets you have a way to find which connection it was associated with. And perhaps most importantly, if the connection no longer exists, you can assume the connection died without cleaning up its tables, and this table is a candidate for removal. The argument to use for "--connection-id" is "\\D\_(\\d+)$". That finds tables with a series of numbers at the end, preceded by an underscore and some non-number character (the latter criterion prevents from examining tables with a date at the end, which people tend to do: baron\_scratch\_2007\_05\_07 for example). It's better to keep the scratch tables separate. If you do this, make sure the user pt-find runs as has the PROCESS privilege! Otherwise it will only see connections from the same user, and might think some tables are ready to remove when they're still in use. For safety, pt-find checks this for you. See also "--server-id". - \--createopts type: string; group: Tests Table create option matches pattern. This tests the Create\_options column. - \--ctime type: size; group: Tests Table was created n days ago. This tests the Create\_time column. - \--datafree type: size; group: Tests Table has n bytes of free space. This tests the Data\_free column. The specified size can be "NULL" to test where Data\_free IS NULL. - \--datasize type: size; group: Tests Table data uses n bytes of space. This tests the Data\_length column. The specified size can be "NULL" to test where Data\_length IS NULL. Note: Starting from MySQL 8.0, empty tables return 0 instead of NULL. - \--dblike type: string; group: Tests Database name matches SQL LIKE pattern. - \--dbregex type: string; group: Tests Database name matches this pattern. - \--empty group: Tests Table has no rows. This tests the Rows column. - \--engine type: string; group: Tests Table storage engine matches this pattern. This tests the Engine column, or in earlier versions of MySQL, the Type column. - \--function type: string; group: Tests Function definition matches pattern. - \--indexsize type: size; group: Tests Table indexes use n bytes of space. This tests the Index\_length column. The specified size can be "NULL" to test where Index\_length IS NULL. - \--kmin type: size; group: Tests Table was checked n minutes ago. This tests the Check\_time column. - \--ktime type: size; group: Tests Table was checked n days ago. This tests the Check\_time column. - \--mmin type: size; group: Tests Table was last modified n minutes ago. This tests the Update\_time column. - \--mtime type: size; group: Tests Table was last modified n days ago. This tests the Update\_time column. - \--procedure type: string; group: Tests Procedure definition matches pattern. - \--rowformat type: string; group: Tests Table row format matches pattern. This tests the Row\_format column. - \--rows type: size; group: Tests Table has n rows. This tests the Rows column. The specified size can be "NULL" to test where Rows IS NULL. - \--server-id type: string; group: Tests Table name contains the server ID. If you create temporary tables with the naming convention explained in "--connection-id", but also add the server ID of the server on which the tables are created, then you can use this pattern match to ensure tables are dropped only on the server they're created on. This prevents a table from being accidentally dropped on a replica while it's in use (provided that your server IDs are all unique, which they should be for replication to work). For example, on the replication source (server ID 22) you create a table called scratch\_table\_22\_12345. If you see this table on the replica (server ID 23), you might think it can be dropped safely if there's no such connection 12345. But if you also force the name to match the server ID with `"--server-id '\D_(\d+)_\d+$'"`, the table won't be dropped on the replica. - \--tablesize type: size; group: Tests Table uses n bytes of space. This tests the sum of the Data\_length and Index\_length columns. - \--tbllike type: string; group: Tests Table name matches SQL LIKE pattern. - \--tblregex type: string; group: Tests Table name matches this pattern. - \--tblversion type: size; group: Tests Table version is n. This tests the Version column. - \--trigger type: string; group: Tests Trigger action statement matches pattern. - \--trigger-table type: string; group: Tests "--trigger" is defined on table matching pattern. - \--view type: string; group: Tests CREATE VIEW matches this pattern. ### ACTIONS The "--exec-plus" action happens after everything else, but otherwise actions happen in an indeterminate order. If you need determinism, file a feature request at \. - \--exec type: string; group: Actions Execute this SQL with each item found. The SQL can contain escapes and formatting directives (see "--printf"). - \--exec-dsn type: string; group: Actions Specify a DSN in key-value format to use when executing SQL with "--exec" and "--exec-plus". Any values not specified are inherited from command-line arguments. - \--exec-plus type: string; group: Actions Execute this SQL with all items at once. This option is unlike "--exec". There are no escaping or formatting directives; there is only one special placeholder for the list of database and table names, `%s`. The list of tables found will be joined together with commas and substituted wherever you place `%s`. You might use this, for example, to drop all the tables you found: ``` DROP TABLE %s ``` This is sort of like GNU find's "-exec command {} +" syntax. - \--print group: Actions Print the database and table name, followed by a newline. This is the default action if no other action is specified. - \--printf type: string; group: Actions Print format on the standard output, interpreting '\\' escapes and '%' directives. Escapes are backslashed characters, like \\n and \\t. Perl interprets these, so you can use any escapes Perl knows about. Directives are replaced by `%s`, and as of this writing, you can't add any special formatting instructions, like field widths or alignment. Here is a list of the directives. Note that most of them simply come from columns of SHOW TABLE STATUS. If the column is NULL or doesn't exist, you get an empty string in the output. A % character followed by any character not in the following list is discarded (but the other character is printed). ``` CHAR DATA SOURCE NOTES ---- ------------------ ------------------------------------------ a Auto_increment A Avg_row_length c Checksum C Create_time D Database The database name in which the table lives d Data_length E Engine In older versions of MySQL, this is Type F Data_free f Innodb_free Parsed from the Comment field I Index_length K Check_time L Collation M Max_data_length N Name O Comment P Create_options R Row_format S Rows T Table_length Data_length+Index_length U Update_time V Version ``` ## DSN OPTIONS These DSN options are used to create a DSN. Each option is given like `"option=value"`. The options are case-sensitive, so P and p are not the same option. There cannot be whitespace before or after the `"="` and if the value contains whitespace it must be quoted. DSN options are comma-separated. See the percona-toolkit manpage for full details. - • A dsn: charset; copy: yes Default character set. - • D dsn: database; copy: yes Default database. - • F dsn: mysql\_read\_default\_file; copy: yes Only read default options from the given file - • h dsn: host; copy: yes Connect to host. - • p dsn: password; copy: yes Password to use when connecting. If password contains commas they must be escaped with a backslash: "exam\\,ple" - • P dsn: port; copy: yes Port number to use for connection. - • S dsn: mysql\_socket; copy: yes Socket file to use for connection. - • u dsn: user; copy: yes User for login if not current user. - • s dsn: mysql\_ssl; copy: yes Create SSL connection ## ENVIRONMENT The environment variable `"PTDEBUG"` enables verbose debugging output to STDERR. To enable debugging and capture all output to a file, run the tool like: ``` PTDEBUG=1 pt-find ... > FILE 2>&1 ``` Be careful: debugging output is voluminous and can generate several megabytes of output. ## ATTENTION Using \ might expose passwords. When debug is enabled, all command line parameters are shown in the output. ## SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS You need Perl, DBI, DBD::mysql, and some core packages that ought to be installed in any reasonably new version of Perl. ## BUGS For a list of known bugs, see \. Please report bugs at \. Include the following information in your bug report: - • Complete command-line used to run the tool - • Tool "--version" - • MySQL version of all servers involved - • Output from the tool including STDERR - • Input files (log/dump/config files, etc.) If possible, include debugging output by running the tool with `"PTDEBUG"`; see "ENVIRONMENT". ## DOWNLOADING Visit \ to download the latest release of Percona Toolkit. Or, get the latest release from the command line: ``` wget percona.com/get/percona-toolkit.tar.gz wget percona.com/get/percona-toolkit.rpm wget percona.com/get/percona-toolkit.deb ``` You can also get individual tools from the latest release: ``` wget percona.com/get/TOOL ``` Replace `"TOOL"` with the name of any tool. ## AUTHORS Baron Schwartz ## ABOUT PERCONA TOOLKIT This tool is part of Percona Toolkit, a collection of advanced command-line tools for MySQL developed by Percona. Percona Toolkit was forked from two projects in June, 2011: Maatkit and Aspersa. Those projects were created by Baron Schwartz and primarily developed by him and Daniel Nichter. Visit \ to learn about other free, open-source software from Percona. ## COPYRIGHT, LICENSE, AND WARRANTY This program is copyright 2011-2026 Percona LLC and/or its affiliates, 2007-2011 Baron Schwartz. THIS PROGRAM IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, version 2; OR the Perl Artistic License. On UNIX and similar systems, you can issue \`man perlgpl' or \`man perlartistic' to read these licenses. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License, version 2 along with this program; if not, see \. ## VERSION pt-find 3.7.1-4 ## POD ERRORS Hey! **The above document had some coding errors, which are explained below:** - Around line 4715: Non-ASCII character seen before =encoding in 'Percona’s'. Assuming UTF-8