Using semicolon (;) vs plus (+) with exec in find

This might be best illustrated with an example. Let’s say that find turns up these files:

file1
file2
file3

Using -exec with a semicolon (find . -exec ls '{}' \;), will execute

ls file1
ls file2
ls file3

But if you use a plus sign instead (find . -exec ls '{}' \+), as many filenames as possible are passed as arguments to a single command:

ls file1 file2 file3

The number of filenames is only limited by the system’s maximum command line length. If the command exceeds this length, the command will be called multiple times.