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Expressions with multiple -user predicates are broken or incompatible with GNU find #155
Description
$ bfs -not \( -user operator -or -user smb \) -exec ls -lad {} \; | tail -n1
bfs: warning: bfs -not "(" -user operator -or -user smb ")" -exec ls -lad "{}" ";"
bfs: warning: ~~~~~~~~~
bfs: warning: This expression is always false.
-rw-rw----+ 1 smb smb 22057241 Oct 15 2024 ./Updates/10.21H2.x64/windows10.0-kb5045523-x64_e95ca9f3a548d05671f7be2ed034cf250d60d8ea.cabDistributing the negation results in the same problem:
$ bfs \( -not -user operator -and -not -user smb \) -exec ls -lad {} \; | tail -n1
bfs: warning: bfs "(" -not -user operator -and -not -user smb ")" -exec ls -lad "{}" ";"
bfs: warning: ~~~~~~~~~
bfs: warning: This expression is always false.
-rw-rw----+ 1 smb smb 819500057 Oct 15 2024 ./Updates/11.22H2.x64/windows11.0-kb5044285-x64_0879eebfa8d66123e40f2c2614bcfd16d053abe3.msuI acknowledge that bfs' warning is self-consistent with the results, so it might be intended behavior rather than a bug, but I don't see why.
Equivalent command line works with GNU find as intuitively expected.
Activity
tavianator commentedon Jun 20, 2025
I'm very sorry about this bug, and I'm sorry I didn't see it until now! I somehow missed the initial GitHub notification.
This is a horrible bug that's been around since bfs 2.0, almost 5 years ago. It's caused by the optimizer assuming that
-user operatoris true,-nouseris false (correct)-user operatoris false,-nouseris true (INCORRECT!)This leads to the invalid removal of
-user smb, because the optimizer thinks it can't be true at the same time as-nouser(which is a valid optimization, but-nouserwas wrongly inferred). A similar bug exists for-groupand-nogroup.This bug is fixed in bfs 4.0.8 (release in progress). You can work around it in older versions with
to disable the optimizer.
-O1works too. It's broken at-O2and above.Thank you very much for the report!
opt: "Not me" doesn't imply "nobody"