Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Look!  An xargs!! (Re: recursive grep)
Message-ID: <10978@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 8 Sep 89 11:28:28 GMT
References: <666@lakart.UUCP> <1641@cbnewsl.ATT.COM> <7774@cbmvax.UUCP> <16816@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <1126@virtech.UUCP> <2404@wyse.wyse.com> <10967@smoke.BRL.MIL> <2415@wyse.wyse.com>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 14

In article <2415@wyse.wyse.com> bob@wyse.UUCP (Bob McGowen Wyse Technology Training) writes:
>I would also like to know the circumstances which prompt you to state that
>xargs will do nothing when there are a lot of "arguments".

Nothing has ever prompted me to state that!  What I said was, your attempted
example of an xargs replacement had that problem.  I don't see the point of
an xargs replacement that didn't add SOMEthing beyond simply typing the
desired command to the shell in the first place, and your script in effect
was a somewhat elaborate implementation of the shell's `` facility, with
the additional feature that it would not even attempt to run a command
under precisely the circumstances that lead one to choose to use xargs.

Why not simply write a genuine xargs implementation, say in C where you
can do it right without a lot of hassle.