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Date: Sun, 13 Oct 1996 10:27:21 -0400
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From: Jay Sachs <sachs@luddite.org>
To: hmmm@alaska.net
Cc: questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: find
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.95.961012165945.3430A-100000@hmmm>
References: <Pine.BSF.3.95.961012165945.3430A-100000@hmmm>
Reply-To: Jay Sachs <sachs@interactive.net>
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hmmm@alaska.net writes:
>can anyone explain the difference between the 2 searches ?
>many times it appears things act strangely different in different
>directories for no apparent reason.
>
>cd usr/local/man/man1
>find / -name ispell*
>
>/usr/local/man/man1/ispell.1
>............................

The wildcard expansion of your shell turns this command into:

  find / -name ispell.1

because the file ispell.1 exists in /usr/local/man/man1

>cd usr/local/man
>find / -name ispell*
>
>/dos/bsd/packages/all/ispell-3.1.2
>/usr/local/bin/ispell
>/usr/local/man/man1/ispell.1
>/usr/local/man/cat1/ispell.1.gz
>/usr/local/man/man4/ispell.4
>/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp/ispell.el
>/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp/ispell.elc
>/usr/packages/All/ispell-3.1.20.tgz
>/var/db/pkg/ispell-3.1.20

In the second case, the ispell* dosn't get expanded, since no
files match. So the command is

  find / -name ispell*

(In other shells e.g. [t]csh, this would get expanded to
   find / -name
 and give an error)

As others have pointed out, quoting *should* make the behavior the
same. Try quoting with single quotes. (What shell are you using?)

-jay