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cola	12-27-2009 09:43 AM

What's the difference between these two find commands?

Code:

find . -name *.txt

Code:

find . -name \*.txt

colucix

12-27-2009 10:02 AM

The difference resides in the way the * character is interpreted by the shell. In the first instance the shell expands the wildcard matching all the files with the ".txt" suffix in the current working directory (if any) and the resulting command is something like:

Code:

find . -name fileone.txt filetwo.txt filethree.txt

this obviously gives an error. If no .txt files are present in the current working dir the wildcard passes intact to the find command and it works as below.

In the second instance the * is protected (escaped) from the shell expansion and the find command actually looks for files ending with .txt under the specified directory tree.

tronayne

12-27-2009 10:09 AM

Well, basically,

Code:

find . -name *.txt

find: paths must precede expression: nerd.txt

Usage: find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-Olevel] [-D help|tree|search|stat|rates|opt|exec] [path...] [expression]

The back slant "escapes" the asterisk (and thus will find the files you're interested in.

Another way is to enclose your argument in quotes; e.g.,

Code:

find . -name '*.txt'

or

find . -name "*.txt"

You can also use brackets

Code:

find . -name '[0-9][0-9]*.txt

will find every file with two digits as the first part of their names and

Code:

find . -name '[Aa][Bb]*.txt

will find every file with Ab, AB, aB as the first two characters.

You can use the brackets in any position in a file name to isolate a particular pattern.

ghostdog74

12-27-2009 05:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cola (Post 3805915)

Code:

find . -name *.txt

Code:

find . -name \*.txt

a better way is just to put double quotes around them.

cola	12-28-2009 01:43 PM

Getting message , find command

find /etc/ -name crond.*

Code:

find: paths must precede expression: cron.hourly

Usage: find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-Olevel] [-D help|tree|search|stat|rates|opt|exec] [path...] [expression]

rweaver

12-28-2009 01:45 PM

That's odd, what version of linux are you using? It works flawlessly on my test system.

GooseYArd

12-28-2009 01:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cola (Post 3807077)

find /etc/ -name crond.*

Code:

find: paths must precede expression: cron.hourly

Usage: find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-Olevel] [-D help|tree|search|stat|rates|opt|exec] [path...] [expression]

-name only takes a single argument, but crond.* expands into several arguments. -name eats the first match, but find assumes that the subsequent matches are additional paths to search.

I think quoting the wildcard will cause find to do the expansion itself, i.e. -name "crond.*"

colucix

12-28-2009 01:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cola (Post 3807077)

find /etc/ -name crond.*

Code:

find: paths must precede expression: cron.hourly

Usage: find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-Olevel] [-D help|tree|search|stat|rates|opt|exec] [path...] [expression]

You already got answers in this other thread of yours. This one reported as duplicate.

cola	12-28-2009 01:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rweaver (Post 3807081)

That's odd, what version of linux are you using? It works flawlessly on my test system.

I did:

Code:

cd /etc

find /etc -name cron.*

That's why i didn't work.

But from ~/ it works.

Code:

cd ~/

find /etc -name cron.*

rweaver

12-28-2009 03:25 PM

Nod, the previous poster was right, I hadn't realized you were in the /etc directory. Escaping the * should make it work from just about anywhere.

pixellany

01-08-2010 02:04 PM

Merged 2 closely-related threads.

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