-maxdepth option after a non-option AND find: paths must precede expression

Question

Hope someone can help with this:

Am trying to delete session files on /tmp with this command:

find /tmp -name 'sess_*' -user Username -maxdepth 1 $CMD {} \;

but I got these errors:

find: warning: you have specified the -maxdepth option after a non-option argument -name, but options are not positional (-maxdepth affects tests specified before it as well as those specified after it). Please specify options before other arguments.

find: paths must precede expression Usage: find [-H] [-L] [-P] [path...] [expression]

I looked for solutions over the web but could not find any. I have deleted other tmp files with other commands and wonder if that affected some volume or socket.

Thank you in advance

Answer 1

find has three types of options: options that are used to match files (e.g. -name, -user), options that specify actions to perform on the matched files (-print, -exec), and options that control the overall behavior of the command (e.g. -maxdepth, -xdev). The third type must be put before the other two. So it should be:

find /tmp -maxdepth 1 -name 'sess_*' -user Username -exec $CMD {} \;