mjhjmtu

After using command:

find path1/ -iname 'file*[1234]' -exec mv -t /home/user1/dir1/path1/path2 ;

I got an error that those files are the same. The command finished successfully. The parent directory from where the search started is path1/ and then as destination directory I put whole absolut path where I want the files moved. Why did this happen?

What mv is saying is that it makes no sense to move the particular file as moving it to the destination would write it back to itself.

You'll get the same thing if you try

mv file file

for any file called file.

As to why this happens:

You run find on the path path1. I'm assuming that this is the same path1 as in the absolute path /home/user1/dir1/path1/path2.

If you have files in /home/user1/dir1/path1/path2 whose names matches the pattern that you use (these may have been moved there by an earlier invocation of your find command, or even by the same find due to the order of directory traversals that find makes), then these would be found by find (since path2 is a subdirectory of path1). This would prompt find to try to execute an mv command that would move files from path2 into path2. This is what triggers the message (I'm hesitating to call it an actual "error").

To avoid looking into path2 with find, you may do this:

find path1 ( -type d -path 'path1/path2' -prune ) -o -iname 'file*[1234]' -exec mv -t /home/user1/dir1/path1/path2 +

If the thing found is a directory (-type d) and if it's the pathname path1/path2, then prune it from the directory search tree that find builds while traversing the directories. Otherwise, continue as before (almost, I changed the final ; to + to make mv take as many pathnames as possible at once).