Bash – find command with parameters in variable

bashfind

> find /etc -name 'shells'
/etc/shells     # good !!

> SEARCH="-name 'shells'"; find /etc $SEARCH
# nothing found - bad !!

Why "find" command can't take params in variable?

Other commands work fine in such mode. It is probably related with spaces and parsing. How can I at first construct params in variable and then execute "find" with this params?

To be clear, I want to make the chain of -name xxxx -o -name yyyyy -o -name zzzzz and then find all the files by one run

Best Answer

your problem is the simple quotes are not interpreted as such, but as being in your parameters.

You think you've executed this:

find /etc -name 'shells'

When in fact you've executed this:

find /etc -name \'shells\'

Keep it in mind: In bash, simple quotes inside double quotes are not ignored.

So the solution is to not put any simple quotes:

SEARCH="-name shells"; find /etc $SEARCH

A better solution is to use quotes and then use eval:

SEARCH="-name 'shells'"; eval " find /etc $SEARCH"

Security problem: Never, Ever use user-supplied information in an eval argument.

Related Solutions

Bash Scripting – How to Determine if a Bash Variable is Empty

This will return true if a variable is unset or set to the empty string ("").

if [ -z "${VAR}" ];

Bash – help with bash script using find and diff command

Remove the slash from the filename in the if statement. The way you have it, it's checking for the file in the root directory, but later it's created in whatever is the current directory.

Also, your script basically says "if suid.old doesn't exist then do a diff".

You might want something like:

#!/bin/bash
if [ ! -f "suid.old" ]
then
    find / -perm -4000 -o -perm -2000 ls > suid.old
fi

if [ ! -f "suid.new" ]
then
    find / -perm 4000 -o -perm -2000 ls > suid.new
fi

diff suid.old suid.new > newchanges.list
mv suid.new suid.old

This says: "If suid.old doesn't exist, create it. If suid.new doesn't exist, create it. Now that they've been created (or already exist) do the diff."

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Bash Scripting – How to Determine if a Bash Variable is Empty

Bash – help with bash script using find and diff command

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