Clever Geek Handbook

Connect find -print0 and xargs -0

find

parameter -print0

and xargs

parameter -0

must work together. man

the page find

says:

-print0 .... This option corresponds to the -0 option for xargs.

Well, they work for me while find

producing some output. How can I make it work when find produces NO output?

find /dev /sys /usr -maxdepth 0 -print0 | xargs -0 -n1 | wc -l    # 3 - OK
find /dev /sys -maxdepth 0 -print0 | xargs -0 -n1 | wc -l         # 2 - OK
find /dev -maxdepth 0 -print0 | xargs -0 -n1 | wc -l              # 1 - OK
find /dev -maxdepth 0 -name "x" -print0 | xargs -0 -n1 | wc -l    # 1 instead of 0 - Fail

Some bad things can happen, such as

find -type d -name ... -print0 | xargs -0 du -sh

when no directories are found xargs

calls du

with no arguments, but du

accepts.

PS I know about the -exec

parameter find

, I just want to connect find

and correctly xargs

.

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1 answer


GNU xargs

has the following option:



  --no-run-if-empty
   -r

If the standard input contains no unused elements, do not run the command. Usually the command is run once even if there is no input.

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