Re: [vox-tech] Error Message From "find"

[Samuel Merritt <spaMAPSm@andcheese.org>]

On Thu, Jan 16, 2003 at 12:33:08PM -0800, Jim Angstadt wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> Sometimes "find" will work; other times not.
> Below is a script where "find" runs good, I cd to a
> subordinate dir, run the same find command, and get an
> error message.  This is repeatable on my Red Hat 7.2
> system.
> 
> If I were using relative addressing, then sure, it
> should be a problem.  But I'm not, am I?
> 
> The output is just as script produces, except I have
> added several blank lines for readability.
> 
> Thanks,
> Jim
> 
> --------------- script output
> 
> Script started on Thu Jan 16 12:07:52 2003
> 
> ]0;ja@localhost:~[ja@localhost ja]$ find
> ~/public_html/web/pages/fam/ -name *.php -print | wc
> -l
>     134

Here, there aren't any files ending in .php, so "*.php* gets passed to
find verbatim. 

> ]0;ja@localhost:~[ja@localhost ja]$ cd
> public_html/web/pages/fam/
> 
> ]0;ja@localhost:~/public_html/web/pages/fam[ja@localhost
> fam]$ cd public_html/web/pages/fam/[ja@localhost fam]$
> find ~/public_html/web/pages/fam/ -name *.php -print |
> wc -l
> find: paths must precede expression
> Usage: find [path...] [expression]
>       0

Here, your shell is expanding *.php to a list of all .php files in the
current directory, so the command is actually

find ~/public_html/web/pages/fam -name foo.php bar.php bert.php ...
last.php -print

You need to enclose *.php in double quotes so your shell will leave it
alone. 

> 
> 
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-- 
Samuel Merritt
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