CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bash
Crashmeister
Crashmeister

Reputation: 385

Find command gets error in .sh but not in terminal

I have a script thats gets an error in a find command:

echo "find ${logPath} -mtime +${cutOffDays} -type f -name ${dateInNameLogs}.log -depth 1 -print -delete 2>&1" >>$logFile
rslt=$(find ${logPath} -mtime +${cutOffDays} -type f -name ${dateInNameLogs}.log -depth 1 -print -delete 2>&1)

The log file shows:

find /Users/craig/Desktop/logs -mtime +21 -type f -name *[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][-_][0-9][0-9][-_][0-9][0-9].log -depth 1 -print -delete 2>&1
rslt = find: 1: unknown primary or operator

If I copy the find command displayed and execute in terminal, it works fine. So something is wrong with my rslt=$(... line.

What am I missing ?

Thanks.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 189

Answers (2)

Charles Duffy
Charles Duffy

Reputation: 295914

Quote your expansions:

rslt=$(find "${logPath}" \
  -mtime "+${cutOffDays}" \
  -type f \
  -name "${dateInNameLogs}.log" \
  -depth 1 \
  -print \
  -delete \
  2>&1)

Quoting "${dateInNameLogs}.log" (in double quotes) tells the shell to expand the variable, but not to expand the result of that as a glob (or to put it through word splitting), thus ensuring that the value is evaluated by find, not by your shell.

This makes behavior robust even if nullglob, failglob, or similar options are set.

Upvotes: 3

Crashmeister
Crashmeister

Reputation: 385

Turns out it was caused by 'shopt -s nullglob'. My script does more than one thing and I had that set at the top of the file. I've moved it to specifically where is was needed and now the script runs fine.

Upvotes: 0

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