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From: jason@hpcnoe.UUCP (Jason Zions)
Newsgroups: net.sources.bugs
Subject: Re: FSLS - List big files in file system
Message-ID: <1620002@hpcnoe.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 16-Sep-86 11:55:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: hpcnoe.1620002
Posted: Tue Sep 16 11:55:27 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 22-Sep-86 07:49:59 EDT
References: <573@ih1ap.UUCP>
Organization: HP Colorado Networks Division
Lines: 32

> >> 
> >> find / -size +nnn -exec ls -l {} \;
> >
> >You can bury the machine this way!!!!  It's incredibly more efficient
> >using xargs(1) instead.
> >
> >	find / -size +nnn -print | xargs ls -l
> >
> 
> And for those of you who don't have xargs (I thought such creatures
> died after v6!), you can do:
> 
> 	ls -l `find / +nnn -print`

What happend if the find produces more characters than can fit in a command
line? Things don't work so well, the shell moans about "command line too long"
or "too many arguments" or some such mumble. That's why xargs still exists in
System V (well, at least HP-UX, HP's implementation of System V); it uses the
smallest number of command invocations to get them all done.

It's amazing how much faster shell scripts run using xargs (as opposed to
-exec cmd {} \; in a find command); my disk drive doesn't walk across the room
from all the fork/execs...
--
This is not an official statement of Hewlett-Packard Corp., and does not 
necessarily reflect the views of HP. It is provided completely without warranty
of any kind. Lawyers take 3d10 damage and roll a saving throw vs. ego attack.

Jason Zions				Hewlett-Packard
Colorado Networks Division		3404 E. Harmony Road
Mail Stop 102				Ft. Collins, CO  80525
{ihnp4,seismo,hplabs,gatech}!hpfcdc!hpcnoe!jason  or  jason@hpcnoe.fc.hp.com