This is basically correct. Notice that you can delete several files at once because rm takes not a single file name but a file list as an argument. Suppose you have 4 files, "a", "b", "c" and "d" you could use:

Code:

rm -f a b c d

and have them deleted in one call of rm. This is why a call like

Code:

rm -f *

works: the shell will expand "*" to such a list of files prior to even call rm and it will happily take it.

On the other hand, command lines have a limited length and the aforementioned "*" might make the command fail once there are too many file names it expands to. Furthermore, every command can only take so many arguments. You may want to try this (in a non-destructive way): execute

Code:

ls *

in the directory with the 1.6 million files of yours you will perhaps see either a "command line too long" or a "too many arguments" error. The same would happen with rm for the same reason.

So this is why creating such a list by find and then feed it to a program (regardless of this program being rm or something else) is a bad idea. This is why the command xargs was developed and for the same reason there is the "+" device in find. Both these are designed to cut a big, unmanageable list into smaller pieces and feed these pieces to a program, one at a time.

I hope this helps.

bakunin