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Bash script using `find` command scenarios to execute properly when searching for specific file types

πŸ‘€ Views: 77 πŸ’¬ Answers: 1 πŸ“… Created: 2025-07-15
bash find scripting

I'm having a hard time understanding I'm working on a project and hit a roadblock. After trying multiple solutions online, I still can't figure this out. I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here, but I'm having trouble with a Bash script that utilizes the `find` command to search for specific file types in a directory hierarchy. The goal is to find all `.txt` files and then process them with a custom function. However, the command doesn't seem to return any results even when I know there are `.txt` files present. Here's the code I have: ```bash #!/bin/bash process_file() { local file="$1" echo "Processing $file" } search_directory="/path/to/directory" find "$search_directory" -type f -name "*.txt" -exec process_file {} \; ``` When I run the script, I get the following output: ``` find: β€˜/path/to/directory’: No such file or directory ``` I've verified that the `search_directory` variable is set correctly and that it contains `.txt` files. I've also tried to run the `find` command directly in the terminal: ```bash find /path/to/directory -type f -name "*.txt" ``` This command successfully lists the files, so I'm not sure why it's failing within the script. I've checked for any hidden characters in the path and confirmed that the script is executable. Is there something in how I'm using the `find` command within the script that could cause this scenario? Any insights would be greatly appreciated! This is part of a larger CLI tool I'm building. Any help would be greatly appreciated! I'm working on a API that needs to handle this.