Question

I want to create script which use find like this:

find . -regex $1 | while read prom; do
    echo $prom
done

I want to get regex from option but I can´t get this working. I tried use some regex (f. e. “.*(txt)§” ) direct instead of $1 but it didn´t help. What I forget about using find?

Answer 1

Is there any reason you have brackets there? Try .*txt$ as your regex (not that funny “section symbol” sign in your question).

If you did want the brackets (as capturing brackets?) you have to do .*\(txt\)$, because the default regex type for find is Emacs-style, in which () are literal and have to be escaped to be interpreted in their regex sense.

You can also do find . -regextype posix-extended -regex '.*(txt)$', noting the -regextype posix-extended which changes the regex to extended POSIX regex, where () are special characters (find -regextype asdf will usually give you an error message listing all the options you can feed in for regextype).

Also, in your bash script, you should surround the $1 in quotes :

find . -regex "$1"

(Unless $1 is already fed in with quotes around it, in which case disregard the suggestion).