On Fri, 16 Mar 2018 09:27:21 -0400 (EDT) "Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday [ at ] crashcourse [ dot ] ca> wrote: > course i taught recently had a section on "xargs", emphasizing its > value(?) in being able to run a command in bite-size pieces but, these > days, is that really that much of an issue? Yes. > $ find . -type f -name core | xargs rm -f That can fail in subtle ways. > i would simply assume i can generate a really long command and write: > $ rm -f $(find . -type f -name core) That can also fail in subtle ways. Finding out why both of those are wrong is left as an exercise for the reader. :) Regards, Dianne.