Author: Stan Eisenstat
Subject: Re: [Cs323] -exec echo {} > foo
Date: Sunday, 06 Sep 2020, 09:30:35

    > Message Posted By: Anonymous
    >
    > When I run:
    >
    > find -type f -print -exec echo {} > foo \;
    >
    > I expect every file name to be printed on the command line AND written to
    > the file 'foo'. However, what happens instead is that each file name is
    > written twice to 'foo', and nothing is printed on the command line. Is
    > this intended? Shouldn't only what is under -exec being piped to 'foo',
    > and not the actual output of find?

As you can see by running

  % echo -type f -print -exec echo {} > foo \;

because the > is not escaped, bash treats it and the
next argument "foo" as signifying output redirection
and does not pass them to the command.  Thus in effect
the command is

  % find -type f -print -exec echo {} \; > foo

which explains the behavior you are seeing.

--Stan-