Using find(1) in command substitution and quote filenames with blanks

Question

I'd like to use find inside a command substitution, where the returned filenames contain whitespace. What option do I need so it correctly quotes the filenames? I tried -print0, but it will not work in the shell itself.

example:

command $(find . -type f) some other params

I also tried with -exec echo "{}" \;, but that was of no help either.

---

If I use set -x to display shell expansion and the actual command which is executed I get:

$ command `find -type f -printf \"%p\"\ ` some other params
++ find -type f -printf '"%p" '
+ command '"./file_with' 'blanks"' '"./another' 'file"' some other params

Where are the single quotation marks coming from and why are they applied to each "word"?

Answer 1

Put the find result in an array, and run command "${array[@]}" some other params.

Answer 2

Maybe the printf action is more amenable to being contained in a substitution (GNU find only, though):

command $(find . -type f -printf \"%P\"\ ) some other params

The %P placeholder is the filename minus the argument to find, so in cases other than find ., you'd probably want %p instead.

Answer 3

find /what/ever -name "what ever" -exec echo "\{\}" \;

works here (Ubuntu 10.04 default gterm with bash)

Just tried

find /bin -name ls -exec \{\} -lah \;
`find /bin -name ls -exec echo \{\} \;` -lah
MYCMD=`find /bin -name ls -exec echo \{\} \;` && $MYCMD -lah
MYCMD=$(`find /bin -name ls -exec echo \{\} \;` -lah)  && echo $MYCMD
MYCMD=$(`find /bin -name ls` -lah)  && echo $MYCMD

all work as expected