Unexpected behavior when using eval in "find -exec"
When you execute this find command:
find . -name '*.png' -exec echo `dirname {}` \;It effectively executes this command:
find . -name '*.png' -exec echo . \;It is because command substitution, i.e. the part surrounded by backticks `...`, happens before find command executes, and {} is replaced by a single dot.
You can verify this by running bash -cx (debug turned on):
bash -cx 'find . -name "*.png" -exec echo $(dirname {}) \;'++ dirname '{}'+ find . -name '*.png' -exec echo . ';'..You can see dirname '{}' executed first and then find results are processed.
btw here is a better command to move files to parent directory if you run find from current directory:
find . -name '*.png' -execdir mv {} .. \;Note that *.png should be quoted, otherwise it will expanded by shell even before find command executes.