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Comment by planckscnst | Hacker News Reader

    find ./ -name '*.log' | xargs rm

Only do that if you know exactly what '*.log' will expand to (i.e. don't use it in scripts and avoid using it on the command line). This is because the delimiter for xargs is a newline character, but filenames can have a newline character in them. This can lead to unexpected results.

Almost everywhere I see xargs used, find ...-exec {} ; will work as well and find ...-exec {} + may work even better.

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    find ./ -name '*.log' -print0 | xargs -0 rm

Fixes that issue and xargs is far more efficient, it doesn't launch a new process for each line like exec does, but far more importantly, xargs is generalizable to all commands so you only have to learn it once; exec is just an ugly hack on find, you can't generalize it across all commands; xargs is much more unixy.

> it doesn't launch a new process for each line like exec does

Exec doesn't either if you use "+" as a terminator:

    find . $(options) -exec command {} \;

executes one command per match,

    find . $(options) -exec command {} +

executes a single command with all matches

> exec is just an ugly hack on find

Obvious and complete nonsense, -exec is both an important predicate of find and a useful and efficient tool.

-print0/xargs -0, now that is a hack.

You apparently missed the part where I said "but far more importantly".

No, that's just your opinion and you're entitled to it so I don't care, the rest is factually incorrect.

Oh, I agree on the + thing, I wasn't aware of that option, however, it doesn't make exec any more generalizable across commands which is what matters.

Wanting to remove the files was so common that some finds have it built-in. Avoids even the overhead of -exec rm {} +.

    find -name '*.log' -delete

True, but the issue isn't removing files, the issue is generalizing a command for mapping output of a command to another command. rm was just a simple example. xargs is far more useful than simply deleting files.

Removing files is a common need coupled with find yet many readers don't know of -delete; I was pointing it out. That doesn't weaken xargs's valid uses. You seem a little defensive? :-)

Too much reddit perhaps. I use the delete switch myself regularly.

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