2 ms·

3 reasons against that: * in a lot of cases the performance just doesn't matter * xargs gets you the spaces in filenames landmine * some commands don't even

by eqvinox 3mo ago

3 reasons against that: * in a lot of cases the performance just doesn't matter * xargs gets you the spaces in filenames landmine * some commands don't even support multiple target filename arguments For scripts in long term use, yeah, sure, figure out xargs maybe. Any other situation with a "| while read" solution, especially on an interactive session, is an oddball and simplicity wins.

laughing_man 3mo ago
xargs supports null termination. While it's true not every command supports multiple targets, presumably you know if you're using one of those commands.
- eqvinox 3mo ago
  xargs sure does support null termination. Does whatever I'm piping into it though? It's "find" in maybe 30% of cases for me, no more, and null termination is not exactly common in other tools.
  - laughing_man 3mo ago
    I'm not sure what you're trying to say. If you need null termination you're going to be a lot better off adding it at the source (say, with sed) than trying to make a while loop work in a shell script. If you don't need null termination, then... don't use it.
    - eqvinox 3mo ago
      I am saying I have a whole bunch of other (not find) sources of items (not even filenames necessarily) that I need to loop over, none of which do null termination on output. It's an item per line, with spaces unescaped. I would either need "| tr '\n' '\0' | xargs -0" or "| xargs -d '\n'". Considering the body of a while loop is more flexible too, I spend the brain capacity on remembering the details on that rather than xargs. I'm well aware xargs is sometimes called for, but it's rare and when it happens I go look up the man page.
aa-jv 3mo ago
>* xargs gets you the spaces in filenames landmine Ignorance of xargs gets you the landmine. Understanding of xargs, helps you complete the mission without blowing off limbs. $ find . -name "Some Files With Spaces*.txt" -print0 | xargs -0 -I {} echo "Processing: {}" # landmine avoided
- eqvinox 3mo ago
  cf. sibling, find is not the only thing to pipe from.

by eqvinox 3mo ago

laughing_man 3mo ago

xargs supports null termination. While it's true not every command supports multiple targets, presumably you know if you're using one of those commands.

eqvinox 3mo ago
xargs sure does support null termination. Does whatever I'm piping into it though? It's "find" in maybe 30% of cases for me, no more, and null termination is not exactly common in other tools.
- laughing_man 3mo ago
  I'm not sure what you're trying to say. If you need null termination you're going to be a lot better off adding it at the source (say, with sed) than trying to make a while loop work in a shell script. If you don't need null termination, then... don't use it.
  - eqvinox 3mo ago
    I am saying I have a whole bunch of other (not find) sources of items (not even filenames necessarily) that I need to loop over, none of which do null termination on output. It's an item per line, with spaces unescaped. I would either need "| tr '\n' '\0' | xargs -0" or "| xargs -d '\n'". Considering the body of a while loop is more flexible too, I spend the brain capacity on remembering the details on that rather than xargs. I'm well aware xargs is sometimes called for, but it's rare and when it happens I go look up the man page.

aa-jv 3mo ago

>* xargs gets you the spaces in filenames landmine Ignorance of xargs gets you the landmine. Understanding of xargs, helps you complete the mission without blowing off limbs. $ find . -name "Some Files With Spaces*.txt" -print0 | xargs -0 -I {} echo "Processing: {}" # landmine avoided

eqvinox 3mo ago
cf. sibling, find is not the only thing to pipe from.