hello Harald, > If you get back exactly '*[n]o_way_this_glob_matches*', that is because the > glob did not match anything. A file by that name would not be picked up by > the glob. If you get back anything else, it was found by the glob. correct but still: this behavior isn't "intellectually correct" to me so i'll bet on find|xargs (which is great for many other reasons anyway). thanks for trying so hard :) regards -- Marc Chantreux Direction du numérique de l'Université de Strasbourg Pôle de Calcul et Services Avancés à la Recherche (CESAR) http://annuaire.unistra.fr/p/20200