Backslash in find command

Question

I have a ksh file where I have following lines of code

   find . \
    \( \
        -name \*.tar -o \
        -name \*.gz -o \
        -name log.\* -o \
        -name out.\*  \
\) \

I am interested in knowing the purpose of these backslashes . Is it for escaping something ?

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 05 '19 at 07:44

1

Rewritten in one line:

find . \( -name "*.tar" -o -name "*.gz" -o -name "log.*" -o -name "out.*" \)

Btw. last -o (must be followed by option) and backslash are wrong in Your example

answered Apr 05 '19 at 07:44

Kubator

the backslash at the end of everyline , Is it to escape newline ? – jaseel_ep Apr 05 '19 at 10:36

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 05 '19 at 18:01

Backslashes have two purposes here:

At the end of the line: Let the shell ignore the newline i.e. the command goes on in the next line. Without it the shell would think that a new command starts in the next line.
Within a line: Escape the next character, so that the shell does not parse it. These characters usually have special meanings to the shell. The backslash removes this meaning so that the character is passed to find "as is". Read more about this here: Which characters need to be escaped when using Bash?. It's about Bash but KSH is similar.

2 Answers2