mjhjmtu

I have created the following code. At the end I want to process each file that is in the array individually but somewhere in this code I have not included the double quotes so the file names with a space in the middle it treats as 2 entries in the array:

#!/bin/bash

EXT=(sh mkv txt)

EXT_OPTS=()
# Now build the find command from the array
for i in "$EXT[@]"; do
 EXT_OPTS+=( -o -iname "*.$i" )
done

# remove the first thing in EXT_OPTS
EXT_OPTS=( "$EXT_OPTS[@]:1" )

# Modify to add things to ignore:
EXT_OPTS=( '(' "$EXT_OPTS[@]" ')' ! '(' -iname "*test*" -o -iname "*sample*" ')' )

#echo "$EXT_OPTS[@]"

searchResults=($(find . -type f "$EXT_OPTS[@]"))

#echo "$searchResults"

for R in "$searchResults[@]"; do
 echo "$R"
 sleep 1
done

So the results I am getting are:

./Find2.sh
./untitled
2.sh
./countFiles.sh
./unrar.sh
./untitled
3.sh
./untitled
4.sh
./clearRAM.sh
./bash_test.sh
./Test_Log.txt
./untitled.txt
./Find.txt
./findTestscript.sh
./untitled.sh
./unrarTest.sh
./Test.sh
./Find.sh
./Test_Log
copy.txt
./untitled
5.sh
./IF2.sh

As an example untitled 5.sh has been added to the array as 2 entries.
where have I forgot to add the "s

cheers

EDIT with suggested edits:

#!/bin/bash

EXT=(sh mkv txt)

EXT_OPTS=()
# Now build the find command from the array
for i in "$EXT[@]"; do
 EXT_OPTS+=( -o -iname "*.$i" )
done

# remove the first thing in EXT_OPTS
EXT_OPTS=( "$EXT_OPTS[@]:1" )

# Modify to add things to ignore:
#EXT_OPTS=( "$EXT_OPTS[@]:-1" )
EXT_OPTS=( '(' "$EXT_OPTS[@]" ')' ! '(' -iname "*x0r*" -o -iname "*torrent*" ')' )

#echo "$EXT_OPTS[@]"

#searchResults=($(find . -type f "$EXT_OPTS[@]"))

#echo "$searchResults"

#for R in "$searchResults[@]"; do
# echo "$R"
# sleep 1
#done


find . -type f "$EXT_OPTS[@]" -exec sh -c '
 for pathname do
 printf "%sn" "$pathname"
 sleep 1
 done' sh +

Now Produces:

./Find2.sh
./untitled 2.sh
./countFiles.sh
./unrar.sh
./untitled 3.sh
./Find3.sh
./untitled 4.sh
./clearRAM.sh
./bash_test.sh
./Test_Log.txt
./untitled.txt
./Find.txt
./findTestscript.sh
./untitled.sh
./unrarTest.sh
./Test.sh
./Find.sh
./Test_Log copy.txt
./untitled 5.sh
./IF2.sh
./Find4.sh

No, you should not parse the output of find. If you want to do something with the pathnames that find finds, you should do that from within find:

find ...stuff... -exec sh -c '
 for pathname do
 printf "%sn" "$pathname"
 sleep 1
 done' sh +

Here, find will call the in-line shell script with batches of found pathnames (the script may be called more than once). find acts as a sort of pathname generator for the internal script.

Another approach is to use -print0 to output the pathnames with in-between them, and then read them with a tool that knows how to read the nul-terminated pathnames. The nul-character is the only character that is not allowed to be part of a Unix pathname, so that's the only safe way to pass them to another tool.

Related:

• Why is looping over find's output bad practice?


• Understanding the -exec option of `find`

With newer versions of bash (> 4.4 IIRC), the mapfile builtin allows you to specify a null delimter - you can then use find ... print0 as suggested in Kusalananda's answer e.g.

mapfile -t -d '' searchResults < <(find . -type f "$EXT_OPTS[@]" -print0)

If that's not an option, then a slower uglier way would be something like

while IFS= read -r -d '' f; do 
 searchResults+=("$f")
done < <(find . -type f "$EXT_OPTS[@]" -print0)

See the related bash: whitespace-safe procedural use of find into select