Re: OT: xargs & vi

[Stephen P Williams <stephen_p_williams@pacbell.net>]

On Mon, Jan 07, 2002 at 04:43:47PM +0100, martin f krafft wrote:
> can anyone please explain this to me?
> 
> seamus:/usr/local/share/phpgw# find . -name Root | xargs vi
> 221 files to edit
> Vim: Warning: Input is not from a terminal

In this case, the shell starts 'xargs' with stdin from the 
stdout of 'find'.  When 'xargs' starts 'vi', it has no other
concept of stdin except that pipe, so that is what vi sees.

> seamus:/usr/local/share/phpgw# vi `find . -name Root`
> 221 files to edit

Here, the output from 'find ...' is converted into a list
of file names that are then given to 'vi'.  Since it it
the shell that is starting 'vi', stdin is from the terminal.

HTH
Steve Williams