How to understand how this find with while loop works in Bash

Question

How can I understand this syntax a bit better?

find ~/Documents/project/updates -type d -name "Branch*[0-9]" -maxdepth 1 -mtime -2 -print |\
while read path; do
    dir_name=$(basename $path)
    function_call $dir_name
done

Answer 1

1. Generate list of directories with find

   • ~/Documents/project/updates look for directories under this path
   • -type d look only for "directories" (and not files, inodes, or other file types)
   • -name "Branch*[0-9]" look only for directories whose names match this wildcard
   • maxdepth 1 don't look any lower than one level deep
   • -mtime -2 modification time -2 days

2. Now that we have a list, for each item in that list,

   • dir_name=$(basename $path) Set "dir_name" to the basename of the directory
   • function_call $dir_name Call "function_call" with "$dir_name"

STRONG SUGGESTION:

Temporarily add set -xv to the top of your shell script and observe the results :)