bash - Passing a command to 'find -exec' through a variable does not work -

given directory $home/foo/ files in it.

the command:

find $home/foo -type f -exec md5deep -bre {} \;

works fine , hashes files.

but, creating variable -exec not seem work:

md5="md5deep -bre"

find $home/foo -type f -exec "$md5" {} \;

returns: find: md5deep -bre: no such file or directory

why?

since enclosing variable in double quotes, entire string gets sent find single token following -exec , find treats name of command. resolve issue, remove double quotes around variable:

find "$home/foo" -type f -exec $md5 {} \; 

in general, not store commands in shell variables. see bashfaq/050.