Problem with find command

[Lakshmipathi]

Hi all,
When i tried the command,

sudo find / -type f -name *.pdf -exec cp {} . \;

/usr/bin/find: paths must precede expression
Usage: /usr/bin/find [-H] [-L] [-P] [path...] [expression]

it worked perfectly few hours back.
what could be the problem? and what's this error mean?

[daark.child]

Works fine for me using

find /some/path -type f -name "*.pdf" -exec cp {} . \;

[Lakshmipathi]

I looks like a issue( bug??) with find command:

now it works when i type

sudo find / -type f -name *.pdf -exec cp {} . \;

i tried to change pdf to txt - it shows the same error again.

 sudo find / -type f -name *.txt -exec cp {} . \;

i get the msg

/usr/bin/find: paths must precede expression
Usage: /usr/bin/find [-H] [-L] [-P] [path...] [expression]

quite strange!!!
Did you know the meaning of above error?

[matonb]

Try retyping the command, I ran into this issue a few days back and it turned out to be a cut 'n' paste issue. Go figure

[Cabhan]

One thing that is striking me is that you are not quoting your shell patterns (*.pdf, *.txt, etc.). Because they are not quoted, they are expanded by the shell, rather than being passed in to find.

Try quoting them and see if that helps.

[matonb]

Well spotted Cabhan , though I don't think it's the cause of the problem (I was quoting the patterns but still had the problem, although I bet it had something todo with cutting a pasting from M$ notepad )

[Lakshmipathi]

Yes,Cabhan. It works when put quotes around it like

sudo find / -type f -name "*.pdf" -exec ls -l {} \;

But works even without quotes.

sudo find / -type f -name *.jpg -exec ls -l {} \;

Hi matonb,
I tried to cut-n-paste i got the errors and
typed the command at terminal - still i'm getting the errors.


anyway using quotes solves my issue with find
Thanks guyz.