Find and bash problems in recent Ubuntu versions

Question

I've been having a problem the last six months or so when combining searches in bash. The exact example is related to Python programming but would apply to any kind of detection/manipulation.

Suppose I want a list of all Python files in the directory where I am. This is easy:

find . -name '*.py'

Now, suppose I'm only interested in those Python files which contain the string "psycopg", e.g. because I want to transition from the old PostgreSQL access library psycopg to psycopg2. Still easy enough:

grep -l  psycopg `find . -name '*.py'`

Now, suppose I want to do a full list of these files to inspect their date stamps to see when I last touched them. I could also wish to open them in gedit, but let's stick to the list:

ls -l `!!`

which expands to

ls -l `grep -l  psycopg `find . -name '*.py'``

Now, what happens? Answer: Nothing. The bash prompt just hangs. Why is that? This may be a wrong way of doing things, but it used to work. I'm pretty sure it worked pre- Ubuntu 10.10 or 10.04.

Answer 1

The problem is the nested command substitution with backticks. bash first tries to execute grep -l psycopg (which is between the first two backticks). But there's no filename - therefore it expects input on stdin (you can try this by entering psycopg).

You can avoid this problem by using the $(command) syntax for command substitutions:

grep -l  psycopg $(find . -name '*.py')
ls -l $(!!)

In this case it can be nested.

Answer 2

Do it in general the other way round, find the files, grep in them, and use finds ls:

find . -name '*.py' -exec grep -q psycopg {} ";" -ls

special forms of output are possible (printf) and listed in the manpage of find.

Answer 3

Backticks do not nest. The first embedded command is grep -l psycopg which is going to listen on stdin for data because there are no filenames.

I'd say get used to using $(this syntax) instead of backticks because they do nest properly.

ls -l $(grep -l psycopg $(find . -name \*py))

Answer 4

It is always wrong to have commands that output more than one filename inside $() or `` (command substitution). See http://mywiki.wooledge.org/ParsingLs for an explanation of why you shouldn't do that.

Also read http://mywiki.wooledge.org/UsingFind and http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/020 on how to use find and deal with filenames properly.

And no,

ls -l `grep -l  psycopg `find . -name '*.py'``

couldn't possibly have worked in earlier versions either.

user unknown's answer shows a good and safe way to do the task you were asking about.