find: -fprint /dev/stdout truncates a redirected stdout

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Since Nov 5, 2026.

  • #947 by @qodelicious — open

Assessment

Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Newbie friendliness
62/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
rust
Domain
cli

Research direction

Start by reading the handling of -fprint, -fprint0, -fprintf and -fls and how those actions open their output paths. Reproduce the reported case with redirected stdout, then check the corresponding stderr case. Done means /dev/stdout and /dev/stderr write to the redirected streams without truncating existing output.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

GNU find treats /dev/stdout and /dev/stderr specially in -fprint, -fprint0, -fprintf and -fls. We open them as normal files, so when stdout is redirected the file gets truncated and the output overwrites itself.

$ echo keep > log
$ /usr/bin/find a.txt -fprint /dev/stdout >> log; cat log
keep
a.txt
$ find a.txt -fprint /dev/stdout >> log; cat log
a.txt

Same with -fprint /dev/stderr 2> err, where an error message overwrites the printed names.

Dominant language
Rust
Stars
653
Forks
115
Avg merge
1d 4h
Merged PRs (30d)
27

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First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

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