From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG  Wed Jun 11 14:11:03 2008
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Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:10:25 +1000 (EST)
From: Ian Smith <smithi@nimnet.asn.au>
To: Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr>
In-Reply-To: <87y75efmvg.fsf@kobe.laptop>
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Cc: Bill Campbell <freebsd@celestial.com>, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org,
	Raphael Becker <rabe@uugrn.org>
Subject: Re: Grep Guru
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On Mon, 9 Jun 2008, Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
 > On Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:44:36 +1000 (EST), Ian Smith <smithi@nimnet.asn.au> wrote:
 > >On Sun, 8 Jun 2008 16:07:12 -0700 Bill Campbell <freebsd@celestial.com> wrote:
 > >>On Mon, Jun 09, 2008, Raphael Becker wrote:
 > >>>On Sun, Jun 08, 2008 at 10:15:50PM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote:
 > >>>> find . -type f -print0|xargs -0 grep <grepoptions> <text to search>
 > >>>
 > >>> There's no more need for find | xargs
 > >>>
 > >>> Try:
 > >>>
 > >>> find . -type -f -exec grep <grepoptions> <text to search> {} \+
 > >>>
 > >>> -exec foo {} \+ behaves like xargs foo
 > >>> -exec foo {} \; exec foo for every file
 > >
 > > Thanks for this kick; I'd missed or misunderstood using {} \+
 > >
 > >> The issue here is that grep execs grep for each file found while
 > >> xargs batches the files.
 > >
 > > If find(1) is to be believed, so does -exec utility [argument ...] {} +
 > 
 > Yes, sure.  I think Bill was just being extra-conservative[1] and he
 > explicitly chose to quote `+' with a backslash to avoid spurious
 > interpreration by the shell.  I also type `\+' out of habbit most
 > of the time.

It doesn't hurt.  My tests used \+ too, though after seeing yours I
tried with just '+' which works in tcsh anyway, unlike unescaped ';'

(It was Raphael actually, though I was replying to Bill's)

 > [1] BSD users tend to be this way, but that's a good thing, right? :)

Right!  Of course for balance we have a 'left!' of out-there developers,
forever pushing envelopes, generating need for updates .. but we'd best
leave the stability vs progress politics to its playground on stable@ :) 

cheers, Ian