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.
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.