Re: find 4.2.20 "-name" option

[Bob Proulx]

Darrell Tangman wrote:
> I just installed findutils 4.2.20 and am finding that existing scripts 
> need tweaking. The latest problem (and the only thing that appears to be 
> an actual bug, and not just an incompatibility) is that the command
> 
>    find . -name '*' -print
> 
> begins its output with ".", followed by "./somename", where "somename" is 
> the first name found in the current directory.

This is exactly what the native HP-UX find command does too.  So there
is probably some legacy compatibility there.  I checked HP-UX 10.20
through 11.23.  All print the . in the above example.

> According to the documentation, "*" does not match "." at the
> beginning of the basename; it appears that find is now treating the
> basename of "." as an empty string, which is a very curious
> behavior.

I look at the POSIX docs which say:

  The leading period shall not be matched by:
    * The asterisk or question-mark special characters

So that does seem to support your statement.

Bob