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Full Discussion: Checking if the files in a directory have a txt extension
Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Checking if the files in a directory have a txt extension Post 302419212 by alister on Thursday 6th of May 2010 01:47:59 PM
Old 05-06-2010
While I did mention that the sh glob is "cheaper" (which I now regret), please note that my post is about correctness and robustness, not performance.

I wasn't referring to searching subdirectories, only that specific use of ls. It serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever and can only result in mishandled filenames. In such a case, where ls is being used to retrieve the filenames in directories (non-recursively), always use file expansion instead.

While we're here, your find solution is also unable to properly handle any filenames with IFS characters (though it's not constrained by a command length limit if there are very many *.txt files). It could be made to handle spaces and tabs correctly, though not newlines, if instead of using the find in a command substitution in a for loop's list, you piped the output of find into a while read loop.

One last point: Please don't misinterpret my intention. I realize that most of the time technically-limited solutions are more than adequate; I use them all the time myself. I simply highlight the limitations so that anyone who is not aware of them will learn.

Regards,
Alister
 

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LEARN ABOUT SUSE

gid

GID(1)								   User Commands							    GID(1)

NAME

       gid - Query ID database and report results.

SYNOPSIS

       gid [OPTION]... PATTERN...

DESCRIPTION

       Query  ID database and report results.  By default, output consists of multiple lines, each line containing the matched identifier followed
       by the list of file names in which it occurs.

       -f, --file=FILE
	      file name of ID database

       -i, --ignore-case
	      match PATTERN case insensitively

       -l, --literal
	      match PATTERN as a literal string

       -r, --regexp
	      match PATTERN as a regular expression

       -w, --word
	      match PATTERN as a delimited word

       -s, --substring
	      match PATTERN as a substring

	      Note: If PATTERN contains extended regular expression metacharacters, it is interpreted as a regular expression  substring.   Other-
	      wise, PATTERN is interpreted as a literal word.

       -k, --key=STYLE
	      STYLE is one of `token', `pattern' or `none'

       -R, --result=STYLE
	      STYLE is one of `filenames', `grep', `edit' or `none'

       -S, --separator=STYLE
	      STYLE is one of `braces', `space' or `newline' and only applies to file names when `--result=filenames'

	      The above STYLE options control how query results are presented.	Defaults are --key=token --result=filenames --separator=space

       -F, --frequency=FREQ
	      find tokens that occur FREQ times, where FREQ is a range expressed as `N..M'.  If N is omitted, it defaults to 1, if M is omitted it
	      defaults to MAX_USHRT

       -a, --ambiguous=LEN
	      find tokens whose names are ambiguous for LEN chars

       -x, --hex
	      only find numbers expressed as hexadecimal

       -d, --decimal
	      only find numbers expressed as decimal

       -o, --octal
	      only find numbers expressed as octal

	      By default, searches match numbers of any radix.

       --help display this help and exit

       --version
	      output version information and exit

REPORTING BUGS

       Report bugs to bug-idutils@gnu.org

SEE ALSO

       The full documentation for gid is maintained as a Texinfo manual.  If the info and gid programs are properly installed at  your	site,  the
       command

	      info gid

       should give you access to the complete manual.

gid - 4.5							    August 2010 							    GID(1)
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