Login or Register to Ask a Question and Join Our Community

Sponsored Content
Full Discussion: Difference between xargs and exec
Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers Difference between xargs and exec Post 73905 by Perderabo on Monday 6th of June 2005 12:02:22 PM
Old 06-06-2005
Quote:
Originally Posted by vibhor_agarwali

find . -name H* -exec ls -l {} \;
find . -name H* | xargs ls -l
As reborg mentioned, the second is faster because xargs will collect file names and execute a command with as long as a length as possible. Often this will be just a single command. This was discussed in grep command-HELP?!.

However the xargs solution will fail if the shell has trouble parsing the file names. Try:
touch "stupid name"
and then retry the two commands.

There is a third solution that combines the best of both worlds. It is in Posix but not every version of the find command supports it. It's like the first syntax except that instead of \; you just use + to terminate the command.
This User Gave Thanks to Perderabo For This Post:
reid
 

10 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

difference between source, exec and ./script

What is the difference between sourcing a script, running it or execing it? (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: 98_1LE
1 Replies

2. Shell Programming and Scripting

MV files with xargs or -exec

Hi I need to move multiple (say 10 files) from one location to another location. My selection would be like this... ls -ltr *.arc | head ---> Need to move top 10 files with single command without iterating in loop. I know we can move files like this with find command but not sure if I can... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: malaymaru
4 Replies

3. Shell Programming and Scripting

String substitution on find results inside exec/xargs

What I'm trying to do is perform a copy, well a ditto actually, on the results of a find command, but some inline string substitution needs to happen. So if I run this code find ./ -name "*.tif" I get back these results. .//1234567.tif .//abcdefg.tif Now the action from exec or xargs I... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: myndcraft
2 Replies

4. AIX

Difference in Using xargs

Hi , Can somebody explain what is the difference in the below commands.. when using Xargs its giving all the hidden files and is it something xargs will do recursive searching or parsing ? find . -type f -links 1 | xargs ls -li find . -type f -links 1 | ls -li (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: Karthikeyan K
1 Replies

5. Shell Programming and Scripting

Difference between using xargs and backticks

Hey all. Just a fast question, what is the technical difference between using back ticks and using xargs to perform a command? Here's an example Find /mydir -name *.conf |xargs rm Vs Rm 'find /mydir -name *.conf' Is there a performance hit? I know they do the same thing but which is... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: msarro
1 Replies

6. Programming

difference bewteen pipe, xargs, and exec

I have read several docs on these on the web and looked at examples. I can't figure out the difference. In some cases you use one or the other or you combine them. can someone help me understand this? (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: guessingo
1 Replies

7. Shell Programming and Scripting

Script Variables Inquiry, Values Okay in Standalone Exec, No-Show in Cron Exec

I have the following bash script lines in a file named test.sh. #!/bin/bash # # Write Date to cron.log # echo "Begin SSI Load $(date +%d%b%y_%T)" # # Get the latest rates file for processing. # d=$(ls -tr /rms/data/ssi | grep -v "processed" | tail -n 1) filename=$d export filename... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: ginowms
3 Replies

8. Shell Programming and Scripting

xargs vs exec with find:

Hi All, i'm trying to create a tar of all the .txt files i find in my dir . I've used xargs to acheive this but i wanted to do this with exec and looks like it only archives the last file it finds . can some one advice what's wrong here : find . -type f -name "*.txt" -print0 | xargs -0... (9 Replies)
Discussion started by: Irishboy24
9 Replies

9. Shell Programming and Scripting

Difference b/w xargs and "-exec" in Find

Hi, What is the difference between the following commands find . -type f -exec grep 'abc' {} \; and find . -type f | xargs grep 'abc' Appreciate your help. (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: bobbygsk
2 Replies

10. Shell Programming and Scripting

Exec and xargs mvoe file to directory

Hello, I am trying to move all the file listed by below command to /tmp/testing directory find ./ -maxdepth 1 -type f -mtime +3 I tried using -exec and xargs - none of the combination is working? Please, help (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: saurabh84g
3 Replies

LEARN ABOUT BSD

xargs

XARGS(1)						      General Commands Manual							  XARGS(1)

NAME

       xargs - construct argument list(s) and execute utility

SYNOPSIS

       xargs [ -t ][[ -x ] -n number ][ -s size ][ utility [ arguments...  ]]

DESCRIPTION

       The  xargs utility reads space, tab, newline and end-of-file delimited arguments from the standard input and executes the specified utility
       with them as arguments.

       The utility and any arguments specified on the command line are given to the utility upon each invocation, followed by some number  of  the
       arguments read from standard input.  The utility is repeatedly executed until standard input is exhausted.

       Spaces,	tabs  and  newlines  may  be embedded in arguments using single (`` ' '') or double (``"'') quotes or backslashes (``'').  Single
       quotes escape all non-single quote characters, excluding newlines, up to the matching single quote.  Double quotes  escape  all	non-double
       quote characters, excluding newlines, up to the matching double quote.  Any single character, including newlines, may be escaped by a back-
       slash.

       The options are as follows:

       -n number Set the maximum number of arguments taken from standard input for each invocation of the utility.  An invocation of utility  will
		 use less than number standard input arguments if the number of bytes accumulated (see the s option) exceeds the specified size or
		 there are fewer than number arguments remaining for the last invocation of utility.  The current  default  value  for	number	is
		 5000.

       -s size	 Set  the  maximum number of bytes for the command line length provided to utility.  The sum of the length of the utility name and
		 the arguments passed to utility (including /dev/null terminators) will be less than or equal to this number.  The current default
		 value for size is ARG_MAX - 2048.

       -t	 Echo the command to be executed to standard error immediately before it is executed.

       -x	 Force	xargs  to  terminate  immediately if a command line containing number arguments will not fit in the specified (or default)
		 command line length.

       If no utility is specified, echo(1) is used.

       Undefined behavior may occur if utility reads from the standard input.

       The xargs utility exits immediately (without processing any further input) if a	command  line  cannot  be  assembled,  utility	cannot	be
       invoked, an invocation of the utility is terminated by a signal or an invocation of the utility exits with a value of 255.

       The xargs utility exits with a value of 0 if no error occurs.  If utility cannot be invoked, xargs exits with a value of 127.  If any other
       error occurs, xargs exits with a value of 1.

SEE ALSO

       echo(1), find(1)

STANDARDS

       The xargs utility is expected to be IEEE Std 1003.2("POSIX") compliant.

								   June 6, 1993 							  XARGS(1)
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 07:25 PM.
Unix & Linux Forums Content Copyright 1993-2022. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy