3 ms·

One thing that have bitten me in the past is the fact that xargs always runs at least once, even if there are no input. By using the -r / --no-run-if-empty flag

by uggedal 15y ago

One thing that have bitten me in the past is the fact that xargs always runs at least once, even if there are no input. By using the -r / --no-run-if-empty flag, xargs does not run the command if the input does not contain any nonblanks.

ptramo 15y ago
As with many cool features, it's a GNU-only option. One can refer to http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/xargs.html http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/xar... for the portable flags.