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[PATCH] Bug #26327: xargs manpage: clarify the number of times command i
From: |
James Youngman |
Subject: |
[PATCH] Bug #26327: xargs manpage: clarify the number of times command is executed. |
Date: |
Sun, 12 Jul 2009 12:58:12 +0100 |
Fix Savannah bug #26327: xargs man page is vague about the number
of times command is executed.
* xargs/xargs.1 (DESCRIPTION): Explain more clearly that the
command will be executed many times. Indicate that -L can also be
useful with -P.
* NEWS: Mention this change.
---
ChangeLog | 9 +++++++++
NEWS | 4 ++++
xargs/xargs.1 | 19 +++++++++++++++++++
3 files changed, 32 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index cccc2f9..22b68f2 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,12 @@
+2009-07-12 James Youngman <address@hidden>
+
+ Fix Savannah bug #26327: xargs man page is vague about the number
+ of times command is executed.
+ * xargs/xargs.1 (DESCRIPTION): Explain more clearly that the
+ command will be executed many times. Indicate that -L can also be
+ useful with -P.
+ * NEWS: Mention this change.
+
2009-07-11 James Youngman <address@hidden>
* NEWS: Set the version to 4.5.6-git, so that we can make test
diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 25a17f6..b7ae0af 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -8,6 +8,10 @@ GNU findutils NEWS - User visible changes. -*- outline -*-
(allout)
#19120: Patch to fix single quotes in man page find(1)
+** Documentation Changes
+
+#26327: xargs man page is vague about the number of times command is executed.
+
* Major changes in release 4.5.5, 2009-07-06
xargs now handles the case where the system's actual exec limits are
diff --git a/xargs/xargs.1 b/xargs/xargs.1
index 57c37d5..84564e6 100644
--- a/xargs/xargs.1
+++ b/xargs/xargs.1
@@ -49,6 +49,23 @@ one or more times with any
followed by items read from standard input. Blank lines on the
standard input are ignored.
.P
+The command line for
+.I command
+is built up until it reaches a system-defined limit (unless the
+.B \-n
+and
+.B \-L
+options are used). The specified
+.I command
+will be invoked as many times as necessary to use up the list of input
+items. In general, there will be many fewer invocations of
+.I command
+than there were items in the input. This will normally have
+significant performance benefits. Some commands can usefully be
+executed in prarallel too; see the
+.B \-P
+option.
+.P
Because Unix filenames can contain blanks and newlines, this default
behaviour is often problematic; filenames containing blanks
and/or newlines are incorrectly processed by
@@ -299,6 +316,8 @@ is 0,
will run as many processes as
possible at a time. Use the
.B \-n
+option or the
+.B \-L
option with
.BR \-P ;
otherwise chances are that only one exec will be done.
--
1.5.6.5
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