find command with exec in python subprocess gives error

Question

I'm trying to execute the following command using subprocess module (python)

/usr/bin/find <filepath> -maxdepth 1 -type f -iname "<pattern>" -exec basename {} \;

But, it gives the following error :

/usr/bin/find: missing argument to `-exec'

I am guessing it's to do with escaping some characters. But not getting how to get over this.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Please provide the line of code where you launch the subprocess — wim, Mar 21 '12 at 06:28

score 15 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:30

An answer on another question helped: https://stackoverflow.com/a/15035344/971529

import subprocess

subprocess.Popen(('find', '/tmp/mount', '-type', 'f',
              '-name', '*.rpmsave', '-exec', 'rm', '-f', '{}', ';'))

The thing I couldn't figure out was that the semi-colon didn't need to be escaped, since normally the semi-colon is interpreted by bash, and needs to be escaped.

In bash this equivelent is:

find /tmp/mount -type f -name "*.rpmsave" -exec rm -f {} \;

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 21 '12 at 10:18

0

One more hint: Using the syntax r'bla' allows using backslashs without having to quote them:

r'... -exec basename {} \;'

Provides better readability.

answered Mar 21 '12 at 10:18

Alfe

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avasal · Answer 3 · 2012-03-21T06:47:30.673

-2

remember escaping " is required and also escaping \ used before ; is also required

your command might look something like:

p1 = subprocess.Popen(["/usr/bin/find", "<filepath> -maxdepth 1 -type f -iname \"<pattern>\" -exec basename {} \\;"])
p1.communicate()

edited Mar 21 '12 at 06:47

answered Mar 21 '12 at 06:39

avasal

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If the OP is using single quotes (`'`) for the string, there is no need to escape the double quotes. – Some programmer dude Mar 21 '12 at 07:07
Thanks. Single quotes around the whole command string worked. – shruthi Mar 21 '12 at 09:18
Even though you succeeded, could you provide the original code @shruthi? And how you fixed it? – isaaclw Apr 27 '13 at 15:14
1

Also note: This doesn't really work. It will interpret the whole second arguement (from to \\;) as the path, which is not what you expect, or want. – isaaclw Apr 27 '13 at 15:24

find command with exec in python subprocess gives error

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