file search bash script

Question

i am trying to make a very simple bash script to find files matching the given name in the directory structure of the current directory. So, I used the find function like this

ARGS=1
E_BADARGS=65
E_NOFILE=66

if [ $# -ne "$ARGS" ]  # Correct number of arguments not passed
then
  echo "Usage: `basename $0` filename"
  exit $E_BADARGS
fi

echo  `find ./ -type f -name \$1`

this works fine but unlike when I use the find command in the command line, the resulting file paths are not separated by newline but just by a space. This naturally isn't too easy to see in the screen. How can I echo so that each file it finds will be separated by a newline.

Answer 1

Try changing

echo  `find ./ -type f -name \$1`

to

find ./ -type f -name $1

Answer 2

As @codaddict noted, echo is unnecessary here. But it's also a good exercise to understand why does your code behave in such a way. Hint: compare

echo  `find ./ -type f -name \$1`

and

echo  "`find ./ -type f -name \$1`"

Answer 3

I would change your find command to this one:

find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -name "$1"

Note that the double quotes are kind important in find command, to treat regular expressions correclty. Also I added maxdepth 1 to search files only in the current directory