Re: Newbie administrator

[Dave Sherohman <esper@sherohman.org>]

On Thu, Feb 27, 2003 at 04:42:07PM +0800, Robert Storey wrote:
> > find /home -type l -exec chmod 777 {} \;    

> Now, one bash question I've been meaning to ask for a long time...
> 
> I keep seeing this...
>   {} \;
> 
> ...on the end of lines in bash scripts. I don't have a good bash book,
> and I don't know what this means, and obviously "man {} \;" isn't going
> to help. Can anyone reveal for thick-headed "programmers" like me what
> that does?

The backslash is the only part of this that is bash-related.  From
find(1):

       -exec command ;
              Execute command; true if 0 status is returned.  All
              following arguments to find are taken to  be  argu­
              ments  to  the command until an argument consisting
              of `;' is encountered.  The string `{}' is replaced
              by the current file name being processed everywhere
              it occurs in the arguments to the command, not just
              in arguments where it is alone, as in some versions
              of find.  Both of these constructions might need to
              be  escaped  (with a `\') or quoted to protect them
              from expansion by the shell.  The command  is  exe­
              cuted in the starting directory.

In bash (at least as shipped by debian), the {} doesn't need to be
escaped, but the ; does.

-- 
The freedoms that we enjoy presently are the most important victories of the
White Hats over the past several millennia, and it is vitally important that
we don't give them up now, only because we are frightened.
  - Eolake Stobblehouse (http://stobblehouse.com/text/battle.html)