Re: spaces in filenames should be a crime.

[Martin Richter <lawn.mower@xxxxxx>]

Hi Ray,

On 28.03.2017 02:46, Ray Andrews wrote:
> echo $(**/*(.om[1])

I'm afraid now you are holding it wrong :-)

1. **/*(.om[1]) will be expanded and therefore lead to a list of
matching filenames

2. the $(...) part will try to execute it as a command
But this is not what you want (usually there is no command named like
the first file found not is this what you usually want to do)

I think you are after

$ echo **/*(.om[1])

or

$ print -- **/*(.om[1])

which will just do what you want.

Cheers,
M.


PS:
Maybe you can also throw an extra (N) into the game to also handle the
case you should ever execute it in empty directories:

$ mkdir /tmp/foo_bar
$ cd /tmp/foo_bar
$ print -- **/*(.Nom[1])

does print nothing instead of throwing an "zsh: no matches found:
**/*(.om[1])" error or re-printing the pattern (depending on your
settings of nomatch and nullglob)

... Plus it gives the globbing modifiers a proximity to the Cookie
Monster's "Nom nom nom" ;-)