[nzlug] Re: How to call functions in `find -exec' or `xargs'

[Johann Schoonees]

Jim Cheetham wrote:
> 
> > #!/bin/bash
> > function myls ()
> > {
> >      command ls -1 "$@"
> > }
> > find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 myls "$*"
> >
> >
> > $ ./example.sh
> > xargs: myls: No such file or directory
> > $
> 
> Well, the action of xargs or find is to locate an executable to fork
> into, and there's no way that they will be able to see the context of
> the shell that invoked them (beyond the existance of environment
> variables and file descriptors, but you won't be able to get your
> hands on them)
> 
> The alternative might be to use the shell script itself to construct
> the static command you want, storing details in a variable and
> invoking exec, instead of using functions.
> 
> #!/bin/bash
> MYLS="ls -l"
> find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 $MYLS

OK, that's would work for my small example.  In my real application, 
myls or MYLS does a lot more work including invoking a nested find.

I suppose there might be some things one simply cannot do (elegantly 
anyway) with shell programming.

Johann

PS: There was a mistake in my original example, the pertinent line 
should have read:
find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 myls
The question stays the same though.

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