How do I execute a complex shell find command from Python?

Question

I'm trying to execute a complex shell command from inside of python. The naive attempt:

subprocess.call(["find", ".", "-exec touch {} \;"], cwd=".")

is failing. How do I go about doing this?

tdelaney · Accepted Answer · 2013-09-14 01:18:11Z

up vote 6 down vote accepted

subprocess.call(["find", ".", "-exec", "touch", "{}", ";"])

cwd="." Is not needed as it is the default.

answered Sep 13 '13 at 22:55

tdelaney
4,2232610

Defaulting to "." is an extension (I think it is a GNU extension). The standard requires a path in the command line. – Robᵩ Sep 14 '13 at 0:40

@Robᵩ thanks for the update, I hadn't considered that. – tdelaney Sep 14 '13 at 1:16

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