XARGS(1) BSD General Commands Manual XARGS(1)NAMExargs — construct argument list(s) and execute utility
SYNOPSISxargs [-0pt] [-E eofstr] [-I replstr [-R replacements]] [-J replstr]
[-L number] [-n number [-x]] [-s size] [utility [argument ...]]
DESCRIPTION
The xargs utility reads space, tab, newline and end-of-file delimited
arguments from the standard input and executes the specified utility with
them as arguments.
The utility and any arguments specified on the command line are given to
the utility upon each invocation, followed by some number of the argu‐
ments read from standard input. The utility is repeatedly executed until
standard input is exhausted.
Spaces, tabs and newlines may be embedded in arguments using single
(`` ' '') or double (``"'') quotes or backslashes (``\''). Single quotes
escape all non-single quote characters, excluding newlines, up to the
matching single quote. Double quotes escape all non-double quote charac‐
ters, excluding newlines, up to the matching double quote. Any single
character, including newlines, may be escaped by a backslash.
The options are as follows:
-0 Change xargs to expect NUL (``\0'') characters as separators,
instead of spaces and newlines. This is expected to be used in
concert with the -print0 function in find(1).
-E eofstr
Use eofstr as a logical EOF marker.
-I replstr
Execute utility for each input line, replacing one or more
occurences of replstr in up to replacements (or 5 if no -R flag
is specified) arguments to utility with the entire line of input.
The resulting arguments, after replacement is done, will not be
allowed to grow beyond 255 bytes; this is implemented by concate‐
nating as much of the argument containing replstr as possible, to
the constructed arguments to utility, up to 255 bytes. The 255
byte limit does not apply to arguments to utility which do not
contain replstr, and furthermore, no replacement will be done on
utility itself. Implies -x.
-J replstr
If this option is specified, xargs will use the data read from
standard input to replace the first occurrence of replstr instead
of appending that data after all other arguments. This option
will not effect how many arguments will be read from input (-n),
or the size of the command(s)xargs will generate (-s). The
option just moves where those arguments will be placed in the
command(s) that are executed. The replstr must show up as a dis‐
tinct argument to xargs. It will not be recognized if, for
instance, it is in the middle of a quoted string. Furthermore,
only the first occurrence of the replstr will be replaced. For
example, the following command will copy the list of files and
directories which start with an uppercase letter in the current
directory to destdir:
/bin/ls -1d [A-Z]* | xargs-J % cp -rp % destdir
-L number
Call utility for every number lines read. If EOF is reached and
fewer lines have been read than number then utility will be
called with the available lines.
-n number
Set the maximum number of arguments taken from standard input for
each invocation of the utility. An invocation of utility will
use less than number standard input arguments if the number of
bytes accumulated (see the -s option) exceeds the specified size
or there are fewer than number arguments remaining for the last
invocation of utility. The current default value for number is
5000.
-p Echo each command to be executed and ask the user whether it
should be executed. An affirmative response, ‘y’ in the POSIX
locale, causes the command to be executed, any other response
causes it to be skipped. No commands are executed if the process
is not attached to a terminal.
-R replacements
Specify the maximum number of arguments that -I will do replace‐
ment in.
-s size
Set the maximum number of bytes for the command line length pro‐
vided to utility. The sum of the length of the utility name, the
arguments passed to utility (including NULL terminators) and the
current environment will be less than or equal to this number.
The current default value for size is ARG_MAX - 4096.
-t Echo the command to be executed to standard error immediately
before it is executed.
-x Force xargs to terminate immediately if a command line containing
number arguments will not fit in the specified (or default) com‐
mand line length.
If no utility is specified, echo(1) is used.
Undefined behavior may occur if utility reads from the standard input.
The xargs utility exits immediately (without processing any further
input) if a command line cannot be assembled, utility cannot be invoked,
an invocation of the utility is terminated by a signal or an invocation
of the utility exits with a value of 255.
DIAGNOSTICS
The xargs utility exits with a value of 0 if no error occurs. If utility
cannot be found, xargs exits with a value of 127, otherwise if utility
cannot be executed, xargs exits with a value of 126. If any other error
occurs, xargs exits with a value of 1.
SEE ALSOecho(1), find(1), execvp(3)STANDARDS
The xargs utility is expected to be IEEE Std 1003.2 (“POSIX.2”) compli‐
ant. The -J and -R options are non-standard FreeBSD extensions which may
not be available on other operating systems.
HISTORY
The xargs command appeared in PWB UNIX.
BUGS
If utility attempts to invoke another command such that the number of
arguments or the size of the environment is increased, it risks execvp(3)
failing with E2BIG.
BSD May 7, 2001 BSD
