Removing files with rm using find and xargs

linux xargs rm
Martin G picture Martin G · Mar 16, 2017 · Viewed 33.8k times · Source

When I do

rm file.txt

or

rm *.txt

I'm prompted for each file, since I didn't specify the -f option to rm.

But when I do this:

find . -type f -name '*.txt' | xargs rm

the files are removed without the confirmation.

What is the logics behind this? Is it possible to find the reason in some documentation? I cannot explain why this would be the case.

Answer

Harald Gliebe picture Harald Gliebe · Mar 16, 2017

You have an alias set for the rm command to 'rm -i'. Therefore if you invoke the command directly as in 

rm file.txt

or

rm *.txt

the alias will be expanded. If you will call it with xargs as in

find . -type f -name '*.txt' | xargs rm

The rm is passed as a simple string argument to xargs and is later invoked by xargs without alias substitution of the shell. You alias is probably defined in ~/.bashrc, in case you want to remove it.

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