(Ubuntu/Linux)"find" command gives different results based on quotation marks

I was using

find -iname *prib*

and getting only one result "./prib09jack.pdf" with

find -iname "*prib*" 

I get many more results that I was looking for such as

./Dir1/PRIB09/prib09jackTFF1.pdf

and many more, but why did it matter that the quotation marks were around "prib"?

Best.

Answer

If there is a file (or files) matching *prib* in the current directory when the find command is run, the shell will expand the wildcard to match the file name(s) first before handing the arguments to find, and result in a different command being run than the user expects.

For example,

$ ls foo*
foobar

$ find -iname foo*
./foobar

$ find -iname "foo*"
./foobar
./dir/foobz
./dir2/fooblat

In short, Quotes delay wildcard interpretation for the find command to perform. Lack of quotes expands immediately.