Display find results, and pipe to xargs Post: 302532021

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Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Display find results, and pipe to xargs Post 302532021 by mij on Sunday 19th of June 2011 10:27:53 AM

06-19-2011

Registered User

Display find results, and pipe to xargs

I have an overnight script which runs across a large directory to repair permissions and ownership. I also have this command output the list of files affected so that cron can email these as a log file. Previously I had the command in the form:

Code:

find /path/to/files -not -user myname -print -exec chown myname "{}" \;

As it is a long command sometimes I never receive a log email even though the ownership and permissions have changed, so I want to make the script more efficient. As such I have changed the command to:

Code:

find /path/to/files -not -user myname -print0 | xargs -0 chown myname

Is there anything I can do to that command so that it sill lists the files on standard output so that they will be emailed by cron in addition to piping them to xargs?

I cannot include the -print action in the find command as this will also be piped to xargs. Likewise if I include an -exec action with an echo command. Also I do not want to use the -t option with xargs as I just want the list of files and not the chown commands it generates.

The best solution I have been able to come up with is to use tee to ssave output in a temporary file to display afterwards, but I am hoping there is better solution.

Thanks,

Michael.

Last edited by Franklin52; 06-19-2011 at 11:34 AM.. Reason: Please use code tags, when posting data and code samples, thank you

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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)