Why doesn't find let me match multiple patterns?

Question

I'm writing some bash/zsh scripts that process some files. I want to execute a command for each file of a certain type, and some of these commands overlap. When I try to find -name 'pattern1' -or -name 'pattern2', only the last pattern is used (files matching pattern1 aren't returned; only files matching pattern2). What I want is for files matching either pattern1 or pattern2 to be matched.

For example, when I try the following this is what I get (notice only ./foo.xml is found and printed):

$ ls -a
.        ..       bar.html foo.xml
$ tree .
.
├── bar.html
└── foo.xml

0 directories, 2 files
$ find . -name '*.html' -or -name '*.xml' -exec echo {} \;
./foo.xml
$ type find
find is an alias for noglob find
find is /usr/bin/find

Using -o instead of -or gives the same results. If I switch the order of the -name parameters, then only bar.html is returned and not foo.xml.

Why aren't bar.html and foo.xml found and returned? How can I match multiple patterns?

Answer 1

You need to use parentheses in your find command to group your conditions, otherwise only 2nd -name option is effective for -exec command.

find . \( -name '*.html' -or -name '*.xml' \) -exec echo {} \;