[SOLVED] Sometimes find doesn't like wildcards

jbruyet · 09-13-2014, 12:17 PM

Hey all, why does find sometimes not like wildcards? Here are two recent examples. This one doesn't like a wildcard:

Code:

[root@Bopper jobee]# find / -name nrpe*
find: paths must precede expression: nrpe-2.15
Usage: find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-Olevel] [-D help|tree|search|stat|rates|opt|exec] [path...] [expression]
[root@Bopper jobee]#

and this one does:

Code:

[root@Bopper jobee]# find / -name foo*
/etc/foomatic
/usr/share/cups/model/foomatic-db-ppds
/usr/share/foomatic
/usr/share/foomatic/db/source/driver/foo2oak-z1.xml
/usr/share/automake-1.11/am/footer.am
/usr/share/doc/foomatic-db-4.0
/usr/share/doc/foomatic-4.0.4
/usr/share/doc/foomatic-4.0.4/foomatic-db-engine-4.0.4
/usr/share/doc/foomatic-4.0.4/foomatic-filters-4.0.4
~
[root@Bopper jobee]#

Googling this doesn't bring up anything I can use.

Thanks,

Joe B

metaschima · 09-13-2014, 12:54 PM

You must quote any wildcards passed to other programs or bash will expand them before the program can.

Code:

find / -name 'nrpe*'

should work properly and not expand to 'nrpe-2.15' which is in your current directory, and bash expands it and passes that to find.

pan64 · 09-13-2014, 01:06 PM

remember, in linux the special characters like * and ? will be expanded before execution. You can check it by inserting an echo before your command.

jbruyet · 09-13-2014, 01:33 PM

Hi metaschima, I was skeptical but when I tried it your way sure enough it worked.

Thanks,

Joe B

metaschima · 09-13-2014, 01:59 PM

Nothing to be skeptical about. Each program expands wildcards, if you let bash expand them you will get a different result than if you let find expand them.