Without xargs: find . -iname '*.java' -exec cat {} + |wc -l But if you do that, why not just: find . -iname '*.java' -exec wc -l {} + Which will als

Without xargs: find . -iname '*.java' -exec cat {} + |wc -l But if you do that, why not just: find . -iname '*.java' -exec wc -l {} + Which will also print out output of wc -l for each files along with total lines.