Info Catalog find: Multiple Files find: Run Commands

find: Querying

 
 3.3.3 Querying
 --------------
 
 To ask the user whether to execute a command on a single file, you can
 use the 'find' primary '-okdir' instead of '-execdir', and the 'find'
 primary '-ok' instead of '-exec':
 
  -- Action: -okdir command ;
      Like '-execdir' (⇒Single File), but ask the user first.  If
      the user does not agree to run the command, just return false.
      Otherwise, run it, with standard input redirected from '/dev/null'.
 
      The response to the prompt is matched against a pair of regular
      expressions to determine if it is a yes or no response.  These
      regular expressions are obtained from the system ('nl_langinfo'
      items YESEXPR and NOEXPR are used) if the 'POSIXLY_CORRECT'
      environment variable is set and the system has such patterns
      available.  Otherwise, 'find''s message translations are used.  In
      either case, the 'LC_MESSAGES' environment variable will determine
      the regular expressions used to determine if the answer is
      affirmative or negative.  The interpretation of the regular
      expressions themselves will be affected by the environment
      variables 'LC_CTYPE' (character classes) and 'LC_COLLATE'
      (character ranges and equivalence classes).
 
  -- Action: -ok command ;
      This insecure variant of the '-okdir' action is specified by POSIX.
      The main difference is that the command is executed in the
      directory from which 'find' was invoked, meaning that '{}' is
      expanded to a relative path starting with the name of one of the
      starting directories, rather than just the basename of the matched
      file.  If the command is run, its standard input is redirected from
      '/dev/null'.
 
    When processing multiple files with a single command, to query the
 user you give 'xargs' the following option.  When using this option, you
 might find it useful to control the number of files processed per
 invocation of the command (⇒Limiting Command Size).
 
 '--interactive'
 '-p'
      Prompt the user about whether to run each command line and read a
      line from the terminal.  Only run the command line if the response
      starts with 'y' or 'Y'.  Implies '-t'.
 

Info Catalog find: Multiple Files find: Run Commands