find: paths must precede expression

GNU find prints find: paths must precede expression when the shell expands an unquoted pattern like *.txt into several file names before find runs: find . -name *.txt becomes find . -name a.txt b.txt, and b.txt is not a valid expression. Quote the pattern.

Reproduce the error

touch a.txt b.txt
mkdir -p sub && touch sub/c.txt
find . -name *.txt

find: paths must precede expression: `b.txt'
find: possible unquoted pattern after predicate `-name'?

With exactly one matching file in the current directory the command does not fail: it silently searches for that one name, which is an even sneakier bug.

Fix: quote the pattern

touch a.txt b.txt
mkdir -p sub && touch sub/c.txt
find . -name '*.txt' | sort

./a.txt
./b.txt
./sub/c.txt

Single quotes, double quotes or a backslash (-name \*.txt) all stop the shell from expanding the glob.

Paths first, expression second

find's syntax is find [paths...] [expression]. A path after an expression triggers the same error:

mkdir -p logs
find -name '*.log' logs

find: paths must precede expression: `logs'
find: possible unquoted pattern after predicate `-name'?

Write find logs -name '*.log' instead.