Problem with for command

[linuxMaestro]

Why is this for command not displaying the ls -al?
root@101 [/backup/backup]# locate ararabi.tar.gz
/backup/backup/weekly/ararabi.tar.gz
/backup/backup/monthly/ararabi.tar.gz
root@101 [/backup/backup]# for i in `locate airarabi.tar.gz`;do `ls -al $i`;done;
-bash: -rw-------: command not found
-bash: -rw-------: command not found

 

[LKBrwnDBA]

Try without the back ticks:

for i in `locate airarabi.tar.gz`;do ls -al $i;done;

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The person who says it can't be done should not interrupt the person doing it. -- Chinese proverb

 

[chipperMDW]

The command

`ls -al $i`

says: run the command [tt]ls -al $i[/tt], and then treat the output of that command as a command itself.

The output probably looks like:

-rw------- 5 bob user 4096 Nov 28 2003 /some/directory/airarabi.tar.gz

When treated as a command, that says: run the command [tt]-rw-------[/tt] with the arguments [tt]5 bob bob 4096 Nov 28 2003 /some/directory/airarabi.tar.gz[/tt].

After much searching, your shell, [tt]bash[/tt], decides that there is no command named [tt]-rw-------[/tt] available, and gives you the error:

-bash: -rw-------: command not found

LKBrwnDBA suggests that you remove the backquotes.

This would cause the [tt]ls -la $i[/tt] command to execute and, rather than attempting to use its output as the name of a command, simply display it.