Question

4

find: missing argument to -exec

rated 0 times [ 4] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 7171 / 3 Years ago, mon, october 18, 2021, 1:53:39

The following works from the terminal no problem

find testDir -type f -exec md5sum {} ;

Where testDir is a directory that contains some files (for example file1, file2 and file3).

However, if I run this from a bash script or from Java using something like

Runtime rt = Runtime.getRuntime();

Process pr = rt.exec("find testDir -type f -exec md5sum {} ;");

I get the following error

find: missing argument to `-exec'

Any ideas?

UPDATE: This was answered correctly over on stackoverflow. I will close the question here. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10704889/java-execute-command-line-program-find-returns-error

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answered 3 Years ago learty · Accepted Answer

The in -exec md6sum {} ; is necessary to prevent the shell from interpreting the ; character as command separator. If Java does not execute the command in a shell, try removing the escaping so that the code becomes:

Runtime rt = Runtime.getRuntime();

Process pr = rt.exec("find testDir -type f -exec md5sum {} ;");

I have just confirmed this behavior with the next test program:

import java.io.*;

class Xx {

    public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception {

        Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("/bin/echo ;");

        InputStream in = p.getInputStream();

        int c;

        while ((c=in.read()) != -1)

            System.out.write((char)c);

        p.waitFor();

    }

}

Compiled with javac Xx.java, java Xx outputs ;. If I remove the , it'll print ; as expected.