find vs. exec(find)

gistfile1.sh

me@localhost:~> find /Applications/ -iname *.plist | wc -l
    6660
me@localhost:~> node -e "require('child_process').exec('find /Applications/ -iname *.plist', function(_, stdout){ console.log(stdout.split('\n').length) })"
1806

// Why does the same find ran on the cmdline return a different number than when used via exec in node?

// Found the bug
// This works:

me@localhost:~> node -e "require('child_process').exec('find /Applications/ -iname *.plist', {maxBuffer:10000*1024}, function(_, stdout){ console.log(stdout.split('\n').length) })"
    6661
me@localhost:~> find /Applications/ -iname *.plist | wc -l
    6660

good question, actually not. I tried it on a self created directory. It seems that there is no difference for small amounts of files, but when it gets near thousand it starts to differ by one or two, the higher the more ...

Maybe the stuff gets "streamed" from some certain pont on and comes in chunks? look at the output of your script i'd say ;)

good idea, i found the bug:

node -e "require('child_process').exec('find /Applications/ -iname .plist', {maxBuffer:10000_1024}, function(, stdout){ console.log(stdout.split('\n').length) })"

does work properly!!!

the maxBuffer argument determines the buffer size and therefore the result are only reported as they fit in there