Comments on How to run a command on a list of files?
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How to run a command on a list of files?
Suppose I have a list of files on standard input. These may be the output of find, cat filelist.txt or something else.
How can I run a command on each file in turn?
There are several options, like `xargs` and `for`. I'll leave those for other answers and only describe my favorite, GNU …
11mo ago
If I just used `find` to generate a list of files, then find's `-exec` argument is usually the way to run some other pr …
11mo ago
In some cases, when you want to apply a pipeline or a complex command to each file, I find it useful to use `while read` …
7mo ago
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The following users marked this post as Works for me:
| User | Comment | Date |
|---|---|---|
| LAFK | (no comment) | Jun 21, 2023 at 05:59 |
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If I just used
findto generate a list of files, then find's-execargument is usually the way to run some other program on each file found.If you pipe the command to
xargs, note that-P nwill run up to n commands in parallel. The best value of n will depend on the relative usage of your CPU and your storage system. -
If I have a program (say,
generate_lists) that generates a list of files,for filename in $(generate_lists); do some_program "$filename" ; doneis usually helpful. Make sure you quote your use of
$filename-- more of them have spaces than you'd think.
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