"No such file or directory" when using "-exec" with find

Question

I have a bunch of folders which have a subfolder somewhere called 360.

find . -name '360' -type d -exec 'echo "{}"' \;

output:

find: echo "./workspace/6875538616c6/raw/2850cd9cf25b/360": No such file or directory

For each found item, I want to do a curl call, and trigger a Jenkins build job. My problem is that ./ part at the start. I should be able to cut it off like this:

find . -name '360' -type d -exec 'echo {} | cut -c 2-' \;

But because it starts with a ./ it will just be executed ("No such file or directory"). How can I get the output from find, without the leading ./?

update:

Here is the whole thing with a jenkins curl call:

find reallylongfolderstructure -name '360' -type d -exec 'curl http://user:[email protected]/jenkins/job/jobname/buildWithParameters?token=ourtoken&parameter={}' \; 

output

08:53:52 find: ‘curl http://user:token@ourdomain/jenkins/job/jobname/buildWithParameters?token=ourtoken&parameter=reallylongfolderstructure/something/lol/360’: No such file or directory

• Michael Homer: Is the error output in the second box what you expected?
• Tamás: no. I just guessed, it's because of the trailing ./ . What Kusalanada wrote actually helped with the trailing ./, but I'm still getting the same error. No such file or directory
• Kusalananda: @Tamás You probably didn't use the code I wrote exactly as I wrote it. If you show how you trigger the Jenkins build, I could also show how to do that directly from find.
• Tamás: @Kusalananda added example jenkins call to question.

Answer 1

You write

because it starts with a ./ it will just be executed ("No such file or directory").

This isn't what's happening. You have provided a single command to the find ... -exec parameter of echo "{}". Note that this is not echo and the directory found by find; it's a single command that includes a space in its name. The find command (quite reasonably) cannot execute a command called echo "./workspace/6875538616c6/raw/2850cd9cf25b/360".

Remove the single quotes around the -exec parameter and you may find you don't need any additional changes or workarounds:

find . -name '360' -type d -exec echo "{}" \;

Similarly here you need to remove the quoting of the entire value passed to -exec. But in this case you still need to quote the storage arguments so the shell cannot interpret &, etc.

find reallylongfolderstructure -name '360' -type d -exec curl 'http://user:[email protected]/jenkins/job/jobname/buildWithParameters?token=ourtoken&parameter={}' \; 

• Tamás: I'm trying to do something similiar and it's not working. find $WORKSPACE -name "*.mp4" -exec ffmpeg -i {} -qscale:v 1 -vf fps=6 {}_exportedFrame_%d.jpg \; find: ffmpeg: No such file or directory Maybe you can help me out again :)
• Chris Davies: @Tamás you probably don't have the ffmpeg program installed. Hence the error message ffmpeg: No such file or directory.
• Tamás: I do have it installed. I just get this error when I execute the shell command from a jenkins(mac build slave) build job. Executing the same command from the terminal works fine.
• Chris Davies: @Tamás in that case I suggest you ask a fresh question. Reference this one - or my answer - if it helps provide context.
• Tamás: All right. Added new question here: unix.stackexchange.com/questions/495076/…

Answer 2

The issue is you are quoting both the utility name and the argument as a single string, which causes find to try to execute the whole thing as the name of the command.

Instead use

find . -type d -name '360' -exec curl "http://user:[email protected]/jenkins/job/jobname/buildWithParameters?token=ourtoken&parameter={}" ';' 

In some older implementations of find, {} won't be recognized as the pathname that find has found when it's concatenated with another string as above, and you would have to use a child shell instead:

With your call to curl:

find -type d -name '360' -exec sh -c '
 for pathname do
 curl "http://user:[email protected]/jenkins/job/jobname/buildWithParameters?token=ourtoken&parameter=$pathname"
 done' sh {} +

See also:

• Understanding the -exec option of `find`

---

In bash:

shopt -s globstar
for pathname in ./**/360/; do
 curl "http://user:[email protected]/jenkins/job/jobname/buildWithParameters?token=ourtoken&parameter=$pathname"
done

The globstar shell option makes the ** glob pattern available. It works like *, but matches across slashes in pathnames.

• Charles Duffy: Minor quibble: Some find releases, not some shells.
• Kusalananda: @CharlesDuffy Well OK, I'll add that (as soon as I get to a computer). The csh shell will mess up if concatenating {} with a string, and that's the only current issue that I've seen anyone have recently. That's why I only mentioned shells.
• Kusalananda: @CharlesDuffy See e.g. unix.stackexchange.com/a/453198/116858
• Charles Duffy: That's an issue in tcsh only without adequate quoting (AIUI, csh not my strength); with the quotes in your code it'd be fine. Re: the find end of things, quoting from the spec: If a utility_name or argument string contains the two characters "{}", but not just the two characters "{}", it is implementation-defined whether find replaces those two characters or uses the string without change.
• Kusalananda: @CharlesDuffy You're right. With the quotes it'll be alright.