bash script is taking fixed argument values instead of those actually passed

Question

I have simple bash script find.sh for finding the files

==>cat find.sh

echo $1

find -name $1

but it is not taking the correct arguments sometimes, instead it takes the fixed argument

Eg

find.sh 'ECSv2_P_TCP_FUNC_060*'

ECSv2_P_TCP_FUNC_060 ECSv2_P_TCP_FUNC_060.backup

Here though i have passed 'ECSv2_P_TCP_FUNC_060*' it has taken ECSv2_P_TCP_FUNC_060 ECSv2_P_TCP_FUNC_060.backup these as arguments.

Why does this happen? And how to avoid this?

Christoph Seibert · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-07 10:52:46Z

5

You need to protect the * character from shell expansion inside the script as well:

echo "$1"
find . -name "$1"

(Edited to include the current directory as argument for find.)

edited Feb 7, 2011 at 10:52

answered Feb 7, 2011 at 10:20

Christoph Seibert

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Comments

William Pursell · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-07 10:25:23Z

1

Your script is indeed taking the argument, but the script is expanding the * before passing it to echo and find is reading the argument and interpreting the *. (Actually, find is probably bombing because the first arguemnt should be a directory. eg, 'find . -name $1')

edited Feb 7, 2011 at 10:25

answered Feb 7, 2011 at 10:19

William Pursell

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4 Comments

Christoph Seibert Over a year ago

At least in GNU find, the manpage states: "If no paths are given, the current directory is used."

William Pursell Over a year ago

@Christoph Other finds take it as a syntax error. (BSD find certainly does!)

vaichidrewar Over a year ago

Thanks a lot!! combining answer 1 and 2 solved my problem. I was missing quotes as well as . required for specifying directoy.

Dennis Williamson Over a year ago

@Christopher: It's different if the argument is a glob. Using GNU find with an existing file named "foo.txt" in the current directory and in a subdirectory below that one with the same name and one called "foo.txt.bak", plus a few other files at both levels, compare each of find foo.*, find "foo.*", find . "foo.*", find -name "foo.*", find . -name "foo.*"` and find . -name foo.*.

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