Shell script - find: missing argument to `-exec'

Question

I'm trying to run this script:

alias logs="cd L:/"
find $logs -name '*system.log*' -mtime +14 -exec rm {} \;

But get this error: find: missing argument to `-exec'. I've tried looking at other posts on this but can't get it working. I'm using cygwin to run this script on Windows.

Did you find a solution for your latest question that you have deleted? https://stackoverflow.com/q/53381852/6309 — VonC, Nov 20 '18 at 20:35

Ashishkumar Singh · Accepted Answer · 2018-08-15T17:01:07.803

0

If you have created any alias with name log, then to use it, you should be using $logs and not logs

Also, maybe the find you are using is of Windows and not of Cygwin. This is made clear if you type 'which find'

edited Aug 15 '18 at 17:01

answered Aug 15 '18 at 13:35

Ashishkumar Singh

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Oops thank you for that I didn't notice as I was trying to figure out the error. I updated my code as I'm still getting the same error. – OSU222 Aug 15 '18 at 13:38
You were right it wasn't the Cygwin find. Thank you for your answer. That fixed it! – OSU222 Aug 15 '18 at 13:46
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`alias` isn't needed. What's probably happening is `$logs` (as the unquoted expansion of an undefined variable) is disappearing and `find` is searching the current working directory. – chepner Aug 15 '18 at 14:34
This error is one emitted by a UNIX-style `find`, so I don't believe the claim of a PATH problem causing the wrong version to be used. Much more likely the script has DOS-style newlines so the last argument is coming out as `;$'\r'` rather than just `;`, which the `-exec` action expects/requires as its terminator. – Charles Duffy Aug 15 '18 at 16:59
@chepner, ...why would `find` searching the current directory result in the specific error the OP reports? – Charles Duffy Aug 15 '18 at 17:00
@AshishSingh, ...btw, `which find` is less reliable than `type find`, if we know the shell to be bash. `which` tells you what's first in the PATH, but it doesn't know about shell functions, variables, cached lookups, or other internal-shell state that can change the way a command is parsed. – Charles Duffy Aug 15 '18 at 17:05
@OSU222, `missing argument to -exec` isn't emitted by Microsoft's version of `find`. How did you determine a different version to be in use, and which version was it? – Charles Duffy Aug 15 '18 at 17:06
@CharlesDuffy On cygwin, both, `which` and `type` command gave save result. So may be you are right. Can you elaborate more as to why one should use `type` and not `which` – Ashishkumar Singh Aug 15 '18 at 17:09
@AshishSingh, they only *sometimes* give the same command. Run `alias find=echo`, and `type find` will know the difference but `which find` will not. – Charles Duffy Aug 15 '18 at 17:11
@CharlesDuffy It wouldn't; I'm simply pointing out that the alias isn't being used in the call to `find` at all. – chepner Aug 15 '18 at 17:11
@CharlesDuffy Why the downvote? Using `/usr/bin/find` on cygwin on my system gave no error. So I guessed that using cygwin find will also not give error to filer – Ashishkumar Singh Aug 15 '18 at 17:12
@AshishSingh, ...the downvote is because nothing in this answer fixes a ```missing argument to `-exec'``` problem. If the OP claimed that it fixed it for them, they changed something else at the same time without knowing it (for instance, by recreating their script with a UNIX-native editor, thus fixing the newlines). – Charles Duffy Aug 15 '18 at 17:13
...that error only happens when (1) you're running UNIX `find`; (2) it sees a `-exec` primitive; (3) it **does not** see either the two consecutive arguments `{}` `+` later in the command line, or a single `;` argument. Which is to say that the error in question happens only under very specific and narrow circumstances, and this answer is not tailored to those circumstances. – Charles Duffy Aug 15 '18 at 17:17
@CharlesDuffy I am no expert in unix, so maybe you're right. Thanks for explaining your point :). – Ashishkumar Singh Aug 15 '18 at 17:18
@CharlesDuffy - Based on your comments I think you're right. The issue was a new line at the end of the script causing the error. – OSU222 Aug 15 '18 at 18:14

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 15 '18 at 17:04

First, some minor fixes:

#!/bin/sh
logs=/cygdrive/l
find "$logs" -name '*system.log*' -mtime +14 -exec rm -- {} +

...but those won't address your real problem (the one causing -exec to report an error), which is almost certainly the presence of DOS newlines in your script.

find -exec reports the error in question when it doesn't see an argument containing only the exact string ;. Outside quotes, \; should be that argument -- but it can be different if your file has hidden characters. And a DOS text file will appear to have hidden characters when opened by a program expecting a UNIX text file, because the two formats have different line separators.

To fix this, open the file in a native-UNIX editor such as vim, run :set fileformat=unix, and save it; or use dos2unix to convert it in-place.

Shell script - find: missing argument to `-exec'

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