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# 1  
Old 08-01-2012
xargs question
Suppose your piping a path into xargs and want to print the name along with the total size:

Code:
find . -maxdepth 1 | xargs -I {} echo "{} [`du -hs {} | sed 's/ [[:alnum:][:punct:]]*//g'`]"

This won't work because {} ceases having its special meaning within the ``. How to preserve it? Thanks
Moderator's Comments:
Mod Comment Code tags for code, please!
Last edited by Corona688; 08-01-2012 at 07:04 PM..
# 2  
Old 08-01-2012
I don't think {} ever meant what you thought it did. In xargs' case, it just means "please don't assume quotes or spaces are special characters". {} only means 'file name' to 'find', which you left behind the instant you typed | . Put more pipes after xargs instead of trying to put them inside -- xargs isn't a shell, it can't do that.

Code:
find . -maxdepth 1 | xargs -I {} du -hs | sed 's/ [[:alnum:][unct:]]*//g'

I don't understand the intention behind your sed here, so it may not be quite right. Could you show what you're trying to do with it -- the output from du, and what you're trying to transform it into?
# 3  
Old 08-01-2012
I want to put the file size after the filename instead of before, also inserted between square brackets. I may also want to put the last modified time after the size, not sure. This way I have control instead of just at the mercy of what du is willing to give me.

So basically printing:

Code:
/a/b/c [10K]
/a/b/d [100K]

and so forth
Last edited by Scott; 08-01-2012 at 07:43 PM.. Reason: ...
# 4  
Old 08-01-2012
Quote:
Originally Posted by stevensw
I want to put the file size after the filename instead of before, also inserted between square brackets.
Okay.

Code:
find . -maxdepth 1 | xargs -I {} du -hs | while read SIZE FILE
do
        echo "$FILE" "[$SIZE]"
done

This User Gave Thanks to Corona688 For This Post:
stevensw
# 5  
Old 08-01-2012
It printed:

Code:
. [35M]
. [35M]
. [35M]
. [35M]
. [35M]
. [35M]
. [35M]
. [35M]
. [35M]
. [35M]
. [35M]
. [35M]
. [35M]
. [35M]
. [35M]
. [35M]
. [35M]
. [35M]
. [35M]
. [35M]
...

a bunch of times, basically printing the cwd and its size each time.
Last edited by Scott; 08-01-2012 at 07:44 PM.. Reason: ...
# 6  
Old 08-01-2012
Try this:

Code:
find . -maxdepth 1 -type d -print0 | xargs -0 -n 1 du -hs | while read SIZE FILE
do
    echo "$FILE" "[$SIZE]"
done

This User Gave Thanks to Chubler_XL For This Post:
stevensw
# 7  
Old 08-01-2012
That works thanks!
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