A community for everything relating to the GNU/Linux operating system (except the memes!)
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Original icon base courtesy of lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP
Basic habit to get into:
If you're contemplating doing something destructive, do a dry-run first.
In this case, remove the -delete flag, run the command and see what you get.
A good approach is to build a command step by step and test your assumptions each iteration.
Things might take a few moments longer, but one day it's going to save your bacon.
As for unexpected globbing, learn the difference between quoted and unquoted, and single versus double quotes.
Source: Linux user for 25+ years
What's the difference between single vs double quotes?
Presuming BASH:
https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bash.html#Quoting
Single quotes are much safer/predictable because:
Enclosing characters in single quotes (‘
'’) preserves the literal value of each character within the quotes. A single quote may not occur between single quotes, even when preceded by a backslash.
Not to say they are always the right choice though.
The shell doesn't expand or interpolate single-quoted strings, they are literals
If you're contemplating doing something destructive, do a dry-run first.
@vk6flab@lemmy.radio is a WITCH I tell you! This is black magic!!
Using zsh will gelp with that mistake, because by default it will turn the 'no matches' scenario into an error. But seriously, always quote your arguments if there is any chance for ambiguity (also for variables)
I use bash and it did throw that error, however the find . | egrep *.py example at the end did not.
It took a while to get used to zsh bailing on non-matching wildcards, but it honestly makes a lot more sense
Don't forget backslashes as an option.