Bob Proulx wrote: > Dave B wrote: >> Edward Peschko wrote: >>> 1: suppose I want to build a 'project' file, which contains a list of >>> files that I care about - one that avoids temporary files, binary >>> files, etc. This would then be a very nice feature. >> You can use xargs to obtain pretty much the same effect. >> >> xargs grep pattern < filelist.txt >> >> (with the usual issues to consider when using xargs) > > You can avoid using xargs here if you don't want to use it. > > grep PATTERN $(<filelist.txt)
Yes that's true. I just felt that xargs (well, GNU xargs to be honest) gives you a bit more control in case the filelist contains filenames with spaces, wildcards or other oddities, which will cause problems with the $(<filelist.txt) approach, since the shell does word splitting and pathname expansion on the result of that. Instead, xargs -d '\n' grep pattern < filelist.txt should take care of most of the issues. It does require GNU xargs however, as I said. -- D.
