find + get $? output diff then 0 when find not match the word

Question

when I perform

 find /tmp -name something 

find command not find the something word under /tmp

 echo $?
 I get $?=0

it's OK

but how to enable Exit status diff then 0 when find command not find the something word?

• Dennis Williamson: Please don't cross-post.

Answer 1

find returns 0 if it runs successfully and non-zero if there are errors. It does not set the exit code based on whether anything was found. You will need to do something like this:

files=$(find /tmp -name something)
if [[ -n "$files" ]]
then
 echo "files were found"
fi

It's more likely, however, that you want to do something with the filenames. You can process them in a loop:

find /tmp -name something | while read -r filename
do
 echo "found: $filename
done

or

while read -r filename
do
 echo "found: $filename
done < <(find /tmp -name something)

If nothing is found then the loop will exit without doing anything.

Answer 2

I feel that this is the most concise and direct method:

test "`find /tmp/ -name something -print -quit 2>/dev/null`"

• Dennis: This will only work if there's not more than a single match. Double quotes around the backticks should overcome this.
• danorton: Also, I accidentally omitted -print -quit.