Bash: -exec on find and &

Question

I want to run:

./my_script.py a_file & 

... for all files in the current folder ending with .my_format , so I:

 find . -type f -name "*.my_format" -exec ./my_script {} & \; 

but that will not work. How to include & in the -exec parameter?

Answer 1

Try the following:

 $ find . -type f -name "*.my_format" -exec sh -c './my_script {} &' \; 

The most likely reason why your attempt does not work is because find executes a command using one of the standard standard library calls with t21, which do not understand job control - the & symbol. The shell really understands "run this command in the background", therefore, calling -exec sh ...

Answer 2

Try this find command:

 find . -type f -name "*.my_format" -exec bash -c './my_script "$1" &' - '{}' \;