Results of not using '{}' in find /mnt/tmp -atime +91 -exec rm -f {} \;?

Question

I have been using the following code for the longest on a system I took over:

find /mnt/tmp -atime +91 -exec rm -f {} \;

However, researching further I see everyone saying the curly braces should be enclosed in single quotes like below:

find /mnt/tmp -atime +91 -exec rm -f '{}' \;

I have never had issues before, but I am curious of any negative impact not using the single quotes might have. Also curious if it varies across linux flavors?

The servers are Ubuntu.

you may want to add '-type f' so it won't complain it can't "rm" a directory? : `find /mnt/tmp -type f -atime +91 -exec rm -f '{}' \;` — Olivier Dulac, Nov 21 '13 at 19:46
A simpler version is: `find /mnt/tmp -atime +91 -delete` - or use tmpwatch/tmpreaper :) — Dennis Kaarsemaker, Nov 21 '13 at 19:48
@DennisKaarsemaker, is there any difference in functionality between rm -f and -delete in the way I am trying to use it? @ Oliver, thanks for the input :) — Damainman, Nov 26 '13 at 07:38
Yes, `-exec rm -f` forks and exec's one rm per file. `-delete` makes find simply unlink the file, that's a *lot* faster. — Dennis Kaarsemaker, Nov 27 '13 at 19:57

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 21 '13 at 19:26

1

The impacts you're speaking of will show up if you have "special" characters in your filenames (as distinct from regex-type special characters). The most obvious would be if you have a file named foo /* - your rm command would go and remove foo then /* without the single quotes, which you probably wouldn't want.

answered Nov 21 '13 at 19:26

John

9,070
1
29
34

Ahh thanks. Yes currently the files are all alphanumeric with no spaces or special characters, which would explain why I haven't ran into any issues. Thank you. – Damainman Nov 21 '13 at 19:28

Results of not using '{}' in find /mnt/tmp -atime +91 -exec rm -f {} \;?

1 Answers1