Re: "find" ends with exit code "0" although exec command returned an error

[Thomas D.]

Hi,

Bernhard Voelker wrote:
> Thanks for the report, however, although the result may be surprising a bit,
> I think it is mandated by POSIX:
> 
>   http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/find.html
> 
>   If the primary expression is punctuated by a <semicolon>, the utility
>   utility_name shall be invoked once for each pathname and the primary
>   shall evaluate as true if the utility returns a zero value as exit
>   status.
>   [...]
> 
>   If the primary expression is punctuated by a <plus-sign>, [...]. If any
>   invocation returns a non-zero value as exit status, the find utility shall
>   return a non-zero exit status.

It looks like find's manpage says exactly the opposite:

>        -exec command ;
>               Execute command; true if 0 status is returned.
>                                                       
>               [...]
> 
>        -exec command {} +
>               This variant of the -exec action runs the specified command on 
> the  selected  files,  but  the
>               command  line  is  built  by appending each selected file name 
> at the end; the total number of
>               invocations of the command will be much less than the number of 
> matched  files.   The  command
>               line  is built in much the same way that xargs builds its 
> command lines.  Only one instance of
>               `{}' is allowed within the command.  The command is executed in 
> the  starting  directory.   If
>               find encounters an error, this can sometimes cause an immediate 
> exit, so some pending commands
>               may not be run at all.  This variant of -exec always returns 
> true.
                                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The reason why I reported this was this text in the manpage

> EXIT STATUS
>        find exits with status 0 if all files are processed successfully, 
> greater than  0  if  errors  occur.
>        This  is  deliberately  a very broad description, but if the return 
> value is non-zero, you should not
>        rely on the correctness of the results of find.

So

> find exits with status 0 if all files are processed successfully
                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

seems to be wrong, not (only true if you use syntax which doesn't return
always true)?


-Thomas