Re: strange behaviour of find -iname

[Eric Blake]

On 03/27/2018 05:28 AM, address@hidden wrote:
>     Hello!
>
>     I am not sure this is a bug, but I fail to understand why find -iname
>     works differently according to the directory where I want to find
>     something...

Not a bug in find, but in your usage.

>     address@hidden /home # find -iname *astrill*

Insufficiently quoted.  Try
 echo find -iname *astrill*
to see what you are really executing.  If your current directory has 
nothing that satisfies the glob, then find sees a single argument, and 
does what you want.

>     address@hidden / # find -iname *astrill*
>     find: paths must precede expression: 20180327_astrill_before_update

But if you execute it in a directory where the glob expands to more than 
one file, then you really executing something like:
 find -iname ':astrill:' '_astrill_'
(I'm guessing here as to what the glob actually expanded to, but you can 
use echo to see for sure).

What you WANTED to type was:
 find -name '*astrill*'
which forces the shell to treat the argument as a literal rather than a 
glob, so that find can then match the glob.


--
Eric Blake, Principal Software Engineer
Red Hat, Inc.           +1-919-301-3266
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