[SOLVED] find with -print or -exec does not print found file

babbab · 10-02-2015, 10:11 AM

I created a normal user in linux, then created a emptyfile in /tmp directory. delted user
and using find command, locate it. then I found this.

Code:

root@garlicbread:[/]# find tmp -nouser -o -nogroup
tmp/ownedbytest
root@garlicbread:[/]# find tmp -nouser -o -nogroup -print
root@garlicbread:[/]# find tmp -nouser -o -nogroup -exec ls -l '{}' \;
root@garlicbread:[/]#

as you can see if I use -print or -exec option, find does not locate the target file

Code:

root@garlicbread:[/]# find tmp -nouser -o -nogroup | xargs ls -l
-rw------- 1 1001 users 0 10월  2 10:44 tmp/ownedbytest

I can use xargs to list as long option, but I noticed that if find does not find any file it execute with empty arguments thus listing current directory.

Code:

root@garlicbread:[/]# find tmp -nogroup | xargs ls -l
total 97
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Sep 28 06:54 bin
drwxr-xr-x   4 root root  1024 Sep 28 06:28 boot
drwxr-xr-x  17 root root  5940 Oct  1 07:51 dev
drwxr-xr-x 101 root root 12288 Oct  2 10:45 etc
drwxr-xr-x   5 root root  4096 Oct  2 10:45 home
drwxr-xr-x   7 root root  4096 Aug 20 03:02 lib
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root 12288 Sep 28 08:22 lib64
...

Does anyone know why find does not execute as expected?

I'm using slackware64 14.1

AlucardZero · 10-02-2015, 10:31 AM

Code:

find tmp -nouser -o -nogroup -print

From man page:

Code:

       expr1 expr2
              Two expressions in a row are taken to be joined with an implied "and"; expr2 is not
              evaluated if expr1 is false.

The file has a valid group. -nogroup is FALSE so -print is never evaluated. Try grouping your conditions.

Code:

find tmp \( -nouser -o -nogroup \) -print

babbab · 10-02-2015, 10:38 AM

I see. the problem was that -nogroup and -print is joined with -and

Thank you for your answer. I appreciate it