I was trying to find all symbolic links in /usr/lib and use file on the first entry in the list, which I delimited with head -n 1.

Why does find /usr/lib -maxdepth 1 -type l | file $(head -n 1) work but find /usr/lib -maxdepth 1 -type l | head -n 1 | file does not?

It complains that I am not using file correctly. Probably because it lacks an argument, but - programmatically/syntactically - why can’t file grab it’s argument from the pipe?

  • N0x0n@lemmy.ml
    6·
    1 day ago

    I learned this the hardway with ffmpeg… In my defense… Their documentation IS huge !!!

    Kinda interested if 2>&1 would also work in this case?

    • theit8514@lemmy.world
      11·
      1 day ago

      2>&1 pipes stderr to stdout, which would not affect a binary like file which doesn’t parse stdin. You would need something like xargs file which would convert the stdout to command line arguments.

      • N0x0n@lemmy.ml
        2·
        17 hours ago

        Thanks for the clarification :)) still new the all the bash syntax and always interested to hear what more skilled people have to say !