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Full Discussion: Difference b/w xargs and "-exec" in Find
Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Difference b/w xargs and "-exec" in Find Post 302680745 by neutronscott on Thursday 2nd of August 2012 09:03:22 AM
Old 08-02-2012
Quote:
Originally Posted by bobbygsk
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.
In the first, find will execute grep for each file found. This works well with any filename.

In the second, find will just print all the files to stdout. You then pipe this output into xargs. xargs reads from stdin and builds a command line. That command line will include more than 1 file.

So it may seem more efficient, but xargs does not handle filenames with whitespace (Unless GNU xargs with -0). find does offer a way to execute with more than 1 filename per invocation. It's find . type -f -exec grep 'abc' {} +
This User Gave Thanks to neutronscott For This Post:
bobbygsk
 

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LEARN ABOUT POSIX

lookbib

lookbib(1)							   User Commands							lookbib(1)

NAME

       lookbib - find references in a bibliographic database

SYNOPSIS

       lookbib database

DESCRIPTION

       A  bibliographic reference is a set of lines, constituting fields of bibliographic information.	Each field starts on a line beginning with
       a `%', followed by a key-letter, then a blank, and finally the contents of the field, which may continue until the next line starting  with
       `%'.

       The lookbib utility uses an inverted index made by indxbib to find sets of bibliographic references.  It reads keywords typed after the `>'
       prompt on the terminal, and retrieves records containing all these keywords. If nothing matches, nothing is  returned  except  another  `>'
       prompt.

       It is possible to search multiple databases, as long as they have a common index made by indxbib(1).  In that case, only the first argument
       given to indxbib is specified to lookbib.

       If lookbib does not find the index files (the .i[abc] files), it looks for a reference file with the same name as the argument, without the
       suffixes.  It creates a file with a .ig suffix, suitable for use with fgrep (see grep(1)). lookbib then uses this fgrep file to find refer-
       ences.  This method is simpler to use, but the .ig file is slower to use than the .i[abc] files, and does not allow  the  use  of  multiple
       reference files.

FILES

       x.ia

       x.ib

       x.ic	index files

       x.ig	reference file

ATTRIBUTES

       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     |	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Availability		     |SUNWdoc			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

SEE ALSO

       addbib(1), grep(1), indxbib(1), refer(1), roffbib(1), sortbib(1), attributes(5)

BUGS

       Probably all dates should be indexed, since many disciplines refer to literature written in the 1800s or earlier.

SunOS 5.10							    14 Sep 1992 							lookbib(1)
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