[bug #17782] unwanted prefix "./" before arguments when using -execdir with find

[Andreas Metzler]

URL:
  <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?17782>

                 Summary: unwanted prefix "./" before arguments when using
-execdir with find
                 Project: findutils
            Submitted by: ametzler
            Submitted on: Sonntag 17.09.2006 um 12:51
                Category: find
                Severity: 3 - Normal
              Item Group: None
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
         Originator Name: WANG Yunfeng
        Originator Email: 
             Open/Closed: Open
                 Release: 4.2.28
           Fixed Release: None

    _______________________________________________________

Details:

This http://bugs.debian.org/385896 reported by WANG Yunfeng.

Short version
Bug:
address@hidden:/tmp/testingfind$ find -type f -execdir echo sh -c 'file -b
{} | true' \;
sh -c ./file -b d | true
Expected output
sh -c file -b ./d | true

Complete original bugreport follows:
---------------------------------------
When action "-execdir" was used with find, a string "./" was prepended
to any argument containing replace pattern "{}", leading to this error:

$ find -type f ! -name "*.gz" -execdir sh -c \
> 'file -b {} | grep -q "gzip compressed data" && mv {} {}.gz' \;
sh: ./file: No such file or directory

I've gone through codes related with this prefixing behavior in the
source code of findutils, and found these relevant lines:

line 509 in find/pred.c :
   const char *prefix = (state.rel_pathname[0] == '/') ? NULL : "./";
lines 278+ in lib/buildcmd.c :
      if (prefix)
        {
          strcpy (state->argbuf + state->cmd_argv_chars, prefix);
          state->cmd_argv_chars += pfxlen;
        }
...

In most cases such design was not a bad idea since {} was generally
placed alone, sometimes even quite good for dealing with unusual file
names like "-l". But if we want to do some complex operations as shown
above, this will turn to be a mess.

Possible resolution could be discarding this feature since those who
need prefix "./" can specify it explicitly at the beginning of argument;
or at least a switch to turn off this behavior should be provided.

Another possible bug concerning "-execdir" shown below:

$ pwd
/tmp
$ find / -maxdepth 1 -wholename / -execdir pwd \;
/tmp
$ find / -maxdepth 1 -wholename /boot -execdir pwd \;
/

Among these two find invocations, the latter conforms to the description
in find's manpage while the former does not. This inconsistency seems to
occur only when the matching filename was "/". I'm not sure if this is
another special handling or not.

ps: action "-okdir" works basically the same way as "-execdir".
-------------------------------



    _______________________________________________________

Carbon-Copy List:

CC Address                          | Comment
------------------------------------+-----------------------------
Available only the item webpage     | original bug submitter




    _______________________________________________________

Reply to this item at:

  <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?17782>

_______________________________________________
  Nachricht geschickt von/durch Savannah
  http://savannah.gnu.org/