`find' error message

[VEGAN]

I get this error message with `find'<

find: /dev/fd/4: No such file or directory

How do make it go away?

[fitter]

Originally posted by VEGAN:
I get this error message with `find'<

find: /dev/fd/4: No such file or directory

How do make it go away?

What are you trying to do? /dev is a pseudo-filesystem, created on boot; you really shouldn't spend time trying to manage it.

[VEGAN]

Originally posted by fitter:


What are you trying to do? /dev is a pseudo-filesystem, created on boot; you really shouldn't spend time trying to manage it.

What I'm saying is that every time I do

sudo find / -name "something"

I get this error, and it's getting annoying.
I don't know why it's there and if I can do something about it [delete the /dev/df/4 (???)].

[khufuu]

When I go into my /dev/fd directory I have the following:

total 0
crw--w---- 1 sjh tty 4, 1 Sep 27 20:30 0
crw--w---- 1 sjh tty 4, 1 Sep 27 20:30 1
crw--w---- 1 sjh tty 4, 1 Sep 27 20:30 2
dr--r--r-- 2 root wheel 512 Sep 22 10:33 3
dr--r--r-- 2 root wheel 512 Sep 22 10:33 4
dr--r--r-- 2 root wheel 512 Sep 22 10:33 5

I did a 'man fd' and found that (I think) the system uses 0-2 for unix commands so that you can re-direct system output but I've never heard of 3-5 before. I'm guessing that the 'find' command uses this directory for something.

Check out your /dev/fd directory to see if you are missing these directories. If you are, try creating them with the permissions, user, and group settings that you see above.

My 0.02.....

[VEGAN]

The thing is that `ls' lists it and with the same permissions. That's sort of a why I ask.

If I delete it will it the system create it again?

[VEGAN]

I don't have the fifth directory [but that can't be the problem because it says "can't find 4"

If I direct the find to the /dev/fd/4 directory I get
"find: /dev/fd/4: Bad file descriptor" What's that?

[khufuu]

If I try to CD to that directory I get that same error message.

There is obviously something 'special' about these directories. I wouldn't suggest deleting them. You probably wouldn't be able to re-create them the same way.

If I were you, I'd post this same question on macosxhints.com forums to see if anything comes up there.

Sorry I couldn't help. :(

[kvm_mkdb]

Originally posted by VEGAN:
I don't have the fifth directory [but that can't be the problem because it says "can't find 4"

If I direct the find to the /dev/fd/4 directory I get
"find: /dev/fd/4: Bad file descriptor" What's that?

/dev/fd contains the file descriptors. It's a feature!

The bug is in 'find' - it should ignore /dev/fd. It doesn't sound major to me though.

[VEGAN]

Originally posted by kvm_mkdb:


/dev/fd contains the file descriptors. It's a feature!

The bug is in 'find' - it should ignore /dev/fd. It doesn't sound major to me though.

It might sound as a serious problem if you are trying to make a script that uses the output of `find'

[kvm_mkdb]

Originally posted by VEGAN:


It might sound as a serious problem if you are trying to make a script that uses the output of `find'

Check out /etc/periodic/daily/500.daily.

It's executed every day at 3:15 am, and relies heavily on the output of 'find'.

[VEGAN]

Originally posted by kvm_mkdb:


Check out /etc/periodic/daily/500.daily.

It's executed every day at 3:15 am, and relies heavily on the output of 'find'.

This looked good... I just got panic attacks last night when `find' started acting funky {console displayed tons of strange messages) when I launched my work in progress in the Project Builder.

[pelTorro]

Originally posted by VEGAN:
I get this error message with `find'<

find: /dev/fd/4: No such file or directory

How do make it go away?
use the -x switch to prevent find from descending into the /dev pseudo-filesystem

% man find
...
-x The -x option prevents find from descending into directories that
have a device number different than that of the file from which
the descent began.
...

this will also prevent find from wandering off into /Volumes