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1.1 root 1: .TH XARGS 1
2: .SH NAME
3: xargs \- construct argument lists and execute command
4: .SH SYNOPSIS
5: .B xargs
6: [
7: .I option
8: ]
9: [
10: .I command
11: [
12: .I initial-arguments
13: ]
14: ]
15: .SH DESCRIPTION
16: .I Xargs\^
17: combines the fixed
18: .I initial-arguments\^
19: with arguments read from standard input to execute the specified
20: .I command\^
21: one or more times.
22: .IR Command
23: .RF ( /bin/echo
24: by default)
25: is located according to environment variable
26: .LR PATH .
27: .PP
28: Arguments read from standard input are delimited by
29: white space (blanks, tabs, or new-lines).
30: However, single or double quotes may be used to
31: surround arguments that contain blanks or tabs, and
32: backslash
33: .L \e
34: may be used to quote single characters outside of quotes.
35: .PP
36: Normally the
37: .I initial-arguments\^
38: are followed by arguments read from standard input until an internal buffer is full, whereupon
39: .I command\^
40: is executed with the accumulated arguments.
41: This process is repeated
42: until there are no more arguments.
43: Options modify this rule:
44: .TP
45: .BI \-l n\^
46: .I Command\^
47: is executed upon reading each
48: .I n\^
49: (default 1)
50: nonempty lines from standard input.
51: Newlines preceded by blank or tab are not counted.
52: Option
53: .B \-x
54: is implied.
55: .TP
56: .BI \-i s\^
57: Insert mode:
58: .I command\^
59: is executed for each line from standard input,
60: taking the entire line as a single arg, inserting it in
61: .I initial-arguments\^
62: for each occurrence of
63: .IR s ,
64: .B {\|}
65: by default.
66: Blanks and tabs at the beginning of each line are thrown away.
67: Constructed arguments may not exceed 255 characters.
68: Option
69: .B \-x
70: is implied.
71: .TP
72: .BI \-n n\^
73: Execute
74: .I command\^
75: using as many standard input arguments as possible, up to
76: .I n\^
77: arguments maximum.
78: .TP
79: .B \-t
80: Trace mode: The
81: .I command\^
82: and each constructed argument list are echoed to file descriptor 2
83: just prior to their execution.
84: .TP
85: .B \-p
86: Prompt about whether to execute
87: .I command.
88: Trace mode
89: .RB ( \-t )
90: is turned on to print the command instance to be executed,
91: followed by
92: .BR ?.\|.\|. .
93: The command will be executed if and only if the
94: reply begins with
95: .LR y .
96: .TP
97: .B \-x
98: Terminate if any argument list would be greater than
99: .I size\^
100: characters.
101: .TP
102: .BI \-s size\^
103: The maximum total size of each argument list is
104: .I size\^
105: characters, 470 by default.
106: .TP
107: .BI \-e eofstr\^
108: .I Eofstr\^
109: (
110: .L _
111: by default)
112: is the logical end-of-file string.
113: Normally
114: .I xargs\^
115: reads standard input up to a logical or an actual end-of-file.
116: Option
117: .B \-e
118: with no
119: .I eofstr
120: turns off logical end-of-file testing.
121: .PP
122: .I Xargs\^
123: will terminate if it receives a return code of
124: .B \-1
125: from,
126: or cannot execute,
127: .IR command .
128: .SH EXAMPLES
129: .TP
130: .L
131: ls $1 \|| xargs \-i \-t mv $1/{\|} $2/{\|}
132: Move all files from directory
133: .L $1
134: to directory
135: .LR $2 ,
136: and echo each move
137: command just before doing it.
138: .TP
139: .L
140: (logname; date; echo $0 $*) | xargs >>log
141: Combine the output of the parenthesized commands onto one line,
142: which is then echoed to the end of file
143: .LR log .
144: .TP
145: .L
146: ls | xargs \-p \-l ar r arch
147: Ask which files in the current directory are to be archived
148: and archive them one at a time.
149: .TP
150: .L
151: ls | xargs \-p \-l | xargs ar r arch
152: Same, but archive many at a time.
153: .TP
154: .L
155: echo $** | xargs \-n2 diff
156: Execute
157: .IR diff (1)
158: with successive
159: pairs of arguments originally typed as shell arguments.
160: .SH "SEE ALSO"
161: .IR sh (1),
162: .IR apply (1)
163: .\" @(#)xargs.1 6.2 of 9/2/83
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