[Discuss] xargs guide

[hag at linnaean.org (Daniel Hagerty)]

Bill Ricker <bill.n1vux at gmail.com> writes:

> | xargs has advantages over -exec.
> + Can take multiple files per exec if supported, e.g. 'rm', massively
> reducing the exec() overhead.
> + can work with sources of filenames other than find

    You misunderstand.  You are thinking of "find -exec {} ;" which is
an exec per found object.

find $find_args -print0 | xargs -0 $command

is approximately

find $find_args -exec $command {} +

with some other small optimizations you can get by having this canonical
idiom open coded into find.  It saves brain cells, it doesn't obsolete
xargs.