Ultrix 4.1 (etc.) find "" -print not what you expect
Ian! D. Allen [CGL]
idallen at watcgl.waterloo.edu
Mon Apr 15 05:52:47 AEST 1991
We all know that Unix treats the null pathname as equivalent to the
current directory. Try for example: ls ""
Well, don't pass the null pathname to an Ultrix find command -- look what
you get:
% cd /usr/tmp && find "" -print
/VIc34646cef
/VIc34k4ofpu
/RIc34k4ofpu
/msg.idallen
[...etc...]
Look! Absolute pathnames transplanted onto the root file system!
More interesting, sadly, is this example, perhaps run via the cron:
cd /usr/tmp && find "" -exec rm -f {} \;
Run this as root and trash anything under "/" that has the same name
as something under /usr/tmp/. Not nice.
Most other "find" commands we've tried have this fault, too.
We have source; we fixed ours.
--
-IAN! (Ian! D. Allen) idallen at watcgl.uwaterloo.ca idallen at watcgl.waterloo.edu
[129.97.128.64] Computer Graphics Lab/University of Waterloo/Ontario/Canada
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