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Xargs Reference

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Linux

Solaris Humor

There are three major Xargs implementations: POSIX, Linux and Solaris.  Linux (GNU/FSF) implementation is the most elaborate and is a superset of two others.

Posix

The following options are supported in POSIX:

-e[eofstr]
Use eofstr as the logical end-of-file string. Underscore (_) is assumed for the logical EOF string if neither -e nor -E is used. When the -eofstr option-argument is omitted, the logical EOF string capability is disabled and underscores are taken literally. The xargs utility reads standard input until either end-of-file or the logical EOF string is encountered.
-E eofstr
Specify a logical end-of-file string to replace the default underscore. The xargs utility reads standard input until either end-of-file or the logical EOF string is encountered.
-I replstr
Insert mode: utility will be executed for each line from standard input, taking the entire line as a single argument, inserting it in arguments for each occurrence of replstr. A maximum of five arguments in arguments can each contain one or more instances of replstr. Any blank characters at the beginning of each line are ignored. Constructed arguments cannot grow larger than 255 bytes. Option -x is forced on. The -I and -i options are mutually exclusive; the last one specified takes effect.
-i[replstr]
This option is equivalent to -I replstr. The string {} is assumed for replstr if the option-argument is omitted.
-L number
The utility will be executed for each non-empty number lines of arguments from standard input. The last invocation of utility will be with fewer lines of arguments if fewer than number remain. A line is considered to end with the first newline character unless the last character of the line is a blank character; a trailing blank character signals continuation to the next non-empty line, inclusive. The -L, -l and -n options are mutually exclusive; the last one specified takes effect.
-l[number]
(The letter ell.) This option is equivalent to -L number. If number is omitted, 1 is assumed. Option -x is forced on.
-n number
Invoke utility using as many standard input arguments as possible, up to number (a positive decimal integer) arguments maximum. Fewer arguments will be used if:
  • The command line length accumulated exceeds the size specified by the -s option (or {LINE_MAX} if there is no -s option).
  • The last iteration has fewer than number, but not zero, operands remaining.
-p
Prompt mode: the user is asked whether to execute utility at each invocation. Trace mode (-t) is turned on to write the command instance to be executed, followed by a prompt to standard error. An affirmative response read from /dev/tty will execute the command; otherwise, that particular invocation of utility is skipped.
-s size
Invoke utility using as many standard input arguments as possible yielding a command line length less than size (a positive decimal integer) bytes. Fewer arguments will be used if:
  • The total number of arguments exceeds that specified by the -n option.
  • The total number of lines exceeds that specified by the -L option.
  • End-of-file is encountered on standard input before size bytes are accumulated.
Values of size up to at least {LINE_MAX} bytes are supported, provided that the constraints specified in the DESCRIPTION section are met. It is not considered an error if a value larger than that supported by the implementation or exceeding the constraints specified in the DESCRIPTION section is given; xargs will use the largest value it supports within the constraints.
-t
Enable trace mode. Each generated command line will be written to standard error just prior to invocation.
-x
Terminate if a command line containing number arguments (see the -n option above) or number lines (see the -L option above) will not fit in the implied or specified size (see the -s option above).

Linux

xargs - build and execute command lines from standard input

Synopsis

xargs [-0prtx] [-E eof-str] [-e[eof-str]] [--eof[=eof-str]] [--null] [-d delimiter] [--delimiter delimiter] [-I replace-str] [-i[replace-str]] [--replace[=replace-str]] [-l[max-lines]] [-L max-lines] [--max-lines[=max-lines]] [-n max-args] [--max-args=max-args] [-s max-chars] [--max-chars=max-chars] [-P max-procs] [--max-procs=max-procs] [--interactive] [--verbose] [--exit] [--no-run-if-empty] [--arg-file=file] [--version] [--help] [command [initial-arguments]]

Description

This manual page documents the GNU version of xargs. xargs reads items from the standard input, delimited by blanks (which can be protected with double or single quotes or a backslash) or newlines, and executes the command (default is /bin/echo) one or more times with any initial-arguments followed by items read from standard input. Blank lines on the standard input are ignored.

Because Unix filenames can contain blanks and newlines, this default behaviour is often problematic; filenames containing blanks and/or newlines are incorrectly processed by xargs. In these situations it is better to use the '-0' option, which prevents such problems. When using this option you will need to ensure that the program which produces the input for xargs also uses a null character as a separator. If that program is GNU find for example, the '-print0' option does this for you.

If any invocation of the command exits with a status of 255, xargs will stop immediately without reading any further input. An error message is issued on stderr when this happens.

Options

--arg-file=file, -a file
Read items from file instead of standard input. If you use this option, stdin remains unchanged when commands are run. Otherwise, stdin is redirected from /dev/null.
--null, -0
Input items are terminated by a null character instead of by whitespace, and the quotes and backslash are not special (every character is taken literally). Disables the end of file string, which is treated like any other argument. Useful when input items might contain white space, quote marks, or backslashes. The GNU find -print0 option produces input suitable for this mode.
--delimiter=delim, -d delim
Input items are terminated by the specified character. Quotes and backslash are not special; every character in the input is taken literally. Disables the end-of-file string, which is treated like any other argument. This can be used when the input consists of simply newline-separated items, although it is almost always better to design your program to use '--null' where this is possible. The specified delimiter may be a single character, a C-style character escape such as \n, or an octal or hexadecimal escape code. Octal and hexadecimal escape codes are understood as for the printf command. Multibyte characters are not supported.
-Eeof-str
Set the end of file string to eof-str. If the end of file string occurs as a line of input, the rest of the input is ignored. If neither -E nor -e is used, no end of file string is used.
--eof[=eof-str], -e[eof-str]
This option is a synonym for the '-E' option. Use '-E' instead, because it is POSIX compliant while this option is not. If eof-str is omitted, there is no end of file string. If neither -E nor -e is used, no end of file string is used.
--help
Print a summary of the options to xargs and exit.
-I replace-str
Replace occurrences of replace-str in the initial-arguments with names read from standard input. Also, unquoted blanks do not terminate input items; instead the separator is the newline character. Implies -x and -L 1.
--replace[=replace-str], -i[replace-str]
This option is a synonym for -Ireplace-str if replace-str is specified, and for -I{} otherwise. This option is deprecated; use -I instead.
-L max-lines
Use at most max-lines nonblank input lines per command line. Trailing blanks cause an input line to be logically continued on the next input line. Implies -x.
--max-lines[=max-lines], -l[max-lines]
Synonym for the -L option. Unlike -L, the max-lines argument is optional. If max-args is not specified, it defaults to one. The -l option is deprecated since the POSIX standard specifies -L instead.
--max-args=max-args, -n max-args
Use at most max-args arguments per command line. Fewer than max-args arguments will be used if the size (see the -s option) is exceeded, unless the -x option is given, in which case xargs will exit.
--interactive, -p
Prompt the user about whether to run each command line and read a line from the terminal. Only run the command line if the response starts with 'y' or 'Y'. Implies -t.
--no-run-if-empty, -r
If the standard input does not contain any nonblanks, do not run the command. Normally, the command is run once even if there is no input. This option is a GNU extension.
--max-chars=max-chars, -s max-chars
Use at most max-chars characters per command line, including the command and initial-arguments and the terminating nulls at the ends of the argument strings. The default is 131072 characters, not including the size of the environment variables (which are provided for separately so that it doesn't matter if your environment variables take up more than 131072 bytes). The operating system places limits on the values that you can usefully specify, and if you exceed these a warning message is printed and the value actually used is set to the appropriate upper or lower limit.
--verbose, -t
Print the command line on the standard error output before executing it.
--version
Print the version number of xargs and exit.
--exit, -x
Exit if the size (see the -s option) is exceeded.
--max-procs=max-procs, -P max-procs
Run up to max-procs processes at a time; the default is 1. If max-procs is 0, xargs will run as many processes as possible at a time. Use the -n option with -P; otherwise chances are that only one exec will be done.

Examples

find /tmp -name core -type f -print | xargs /bin/rm -f
Find files named core in or below the directory /tmp and delete them. Note that this will work incorrectly if there are any filenames containing newlines or spaces.

find /tmp -name core -type f -print0 | xargs -0 /bin/rm -f

Find files named core in or below the directory /tmp and delete them, processing filenames in such a way that file or directory names containing spaces or newlines are correctly handled.

cut -d: -f1 < /etc/passwd | sort | xargs echo
Generates a compact listing of all the users on the system.

Exit Status

xargs exits with the following status:
0 if it succeeds
123 if any invocation of the command exited with status 1-125
124 if the command exited with status 255
125 if the command is killed by a signal
126 if the command cannot be run
127 if the command is not found
1 if some other error occurred.
Exit codes greater than 128 are used by the shell to indicate that a program died due to a fatal signal.

Solaris

xargs– construct argument lists and invoke utility

Description

Options

Operands

Usage

Examples

Environment Variables

Exit Status



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History:

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