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  • This requires that the filenames do not contain whitespace characters such as space or newline. It also requires GNU find. Commented Jul 18, 2018 at 12:07
  • of course. I wrote it this way for simplicity. You can easily fix it by using zero delimiter. option -0 for xargs and print0 for find. Commented Jul 18, 2018 at 12:09
  • 1
    Good people never use whitespace in filenames anyway... :-D Commented Jul 18, 2018 at 12:09
  • I don't think I mentioned anything about the character set used for the filenames in the question, apart from them ending with .txt. So there can be no assumptions made. Good people write code to support any valid Unix filename. Using -print0 and -0 with find and xargs will help partway through the pipeline (if you have tools that support these options), but you'll have the same issue when you get to ls and head later, especially if the filenames contain newlines. Commented Jul 18, 2018 at 12:16
  • no insult was intended. I hoped you are here to learn, and simple is better than complex if you want to learn. Extended solution included for you. Commented Jul 18, 2018 at 12:28