What does "paths must precede expression" mean when using find?

I want show all the files that have a .bak extension.

kaykav@ubu2:~/Documents$ ls
cdIndex1-60 met.bak tem.bak

I type the cmd : $ find . -name *.bak

I'm in the correct Directory for this. I get the following message:

find: paths must precede expression: tem.bak

What does that mean? Man pages are no help.

1

1 Answer

Try putting it in quotes:

find . -name '*.bak'

When you simply use find . -name *.bak in that directory shell expands it to find . -name tem.bak met.bak (i.e. interprets * as the wildcard)

2

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