Run find and rsync from bash script

Question

I'm trying to run find with rsync command. I followed the answer here.
When I run it from the command line it run okay.

find ./copy1 -mtime +14  -printf %P\\0 | rsync -avc --dry-run --files-from=- --from0 ./copy1 /home/shlo/copy1/

The problem started when I run it from bash script:

RSYNC_COM='find ./copy1 -mtime +14  -printf %P\\0 | rsync -avc --dry-run --files-from=- --from0 ./copy1 /home/shlo/copy1/'
output=$($RSYNC_COM 2>&1)

I get the error:

find: paths must precede expression: | Usage: find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-Olevel] [-D help|tree|search|stat|rates|opt|exec] [path...] [expression]

It look he thinks the rsync command is parameters in the find command.

How can I fix it?

Thanks

Answer 1

The problem is that you assign the command to a variable. The | is no longer parsed as pipe "operator", but as a normal string.

# echo 123 | cat
123
# a="echo 123 | cat"
# $a
123 | cat

The | is invalid argument for find, so it returns an error.

Use a function:

rsync_com() {
         find ./copy1 -mtime +14  -printf %P\\0 |
         rsync -avc --dry-run --files-from=- --from0 ./copy1 /home/shlo/copy1/
}
output=$(rsync_com 2>&1)

Remember to always quote variable expansions. And never run a command created by an unescaped variable expansion.

The convention is that upper case variables are reserved to be exported variables.