No need for `xargs` in this case, `find` has been able to take care of this for quite some time now, using `+` instead of `;`: find . -type f -exec perl -p

No need for `xargs` in this case, `find` has been able to take care of this for quite some time now, using `+` instead of `;`: find . -type f -exec perl -p -i -e 's#foo#bar#g' {} +