find statement

tostay2003 · 12-10-2007, 10:10 AM

Sorry to bug you. I am unable to understand the find statement in both the if else constructs. Could someone help me understand it.

Code:

 if
      [[ -z "$_Files" ]]
   then
      find . ! -path ./install -only|cpio -ocv >$_cpioFile 2>/dev/null
   else
      ls $_Files|cpio -ocv >$_cpioFile 2>/dev/null
   fi

Code:

   if
      [[ -z "$_Files" ]]
   then
      find $_Path -type f|xargs what >>$(DirectoryPath)
   else
      ls $_Files|xargs what >>$(DirectoryPath)
   fi

rsashok · 12-10-2007, 02:03 PM

First 'find': find all nodes which don't have (!) 'install' in their name, apparently intention is to skip everything in directory "./install". I don't know what "-only" means - there is no manual entry for it.

Second 'find' is easy: list all files (not directories) in whatever value of "$_Path".

I am not sure what are these scripts are intended for, and if they work at all. Do they?

tostay2003 · 12-11-2007, 09:41 AM

These statements are extracted from a script. And yes they do work. Thanks for the feedback it sure was of help.

The script that was run (or contains the above statements) is under ./install directory and didnt wanted to have that included.

What is with the

Code:

xargs what

in the second find statement

rsashok · 12-11-2007, 10:30 AM

My distribution doesn't have 'what' command, but it has 'man' pages for it. It looks for a string "@(#)" in the file and prints what follows until newline. 'xargs' in 'xagrs what' provides input to 'what' command from the pipe, e.g. each line from 'ls $_Files' is given to 'what' as a input.

PAix · 12-11-2007, 11:44 AM

The what command is/was available under Solaris and typically in source code I would insert

Quote:

# @(#)programname version information

somewhere in the header, then on a production platform program directory I could program a loop to ask of each program in turn

Quote:

what $programname

and get a list of programs and their current installed compiled versions. Of course if my interest was for a specific program then no loop needed.

As you can imagine with a multiplicity of databases up and down the country, 40+ boxes then it was handy from time to time.