find -exec cmd {} + vs | xargs

Question

Which one is more efficient over a very large set of files and should be used?

find . -exec cmd {} +

or

find . | xargs cmd
         


        

Answer 1

find . | xargs cmd

is more efficient (it runs cmd as few times as possible, unlike exec, which runs cmd once for each match). However, you will run into trouble if filenames contain spaces or funky characters.

The following is suggested to be used:

find . -print0 | xargs -0 cmd

this will work even if filenames contain funky characters (-print0 makes find print NUL-terminated matches, -0 makes xargs expect this format.)