XARGS(1) - General Commands Manual #

XARGS(1) - General Commands Manual

NAME #

xargs - construct argument list(s) and execute utility

SYNOPSIS #

xargs [-0oprt] [-E eofstr] [-I replstr [-R replacements]] [-J replstr] [-L number] [-n number [-x]] [-P maxprocs] [-s size] [utility [argument …]]

DESCRIPTION #

The xargs utility reads space, tab, newline, and end-of-file delimited strings from the standard input and executes the specified utility with the strings as arguments.

Any arguments specified on the command line are given to the utility upon each invocation, followed by some number of the arguments read from standard input. The utility is repeatedly executed one or more times 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 characters, 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.
The quoting mechanisms described above are not performed.
This option is expected to be used in concert with the
**-print0**
function in
[find(1)](/man/man1/find.1).

-E eofstr

Use
*eofstr*
as a logical EOF marker.

-I replstr

Execute
*utility*
for each input line, replacing one or more occurrences 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 concatenating 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 distinct
*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*
of non-empty lines read.
A line ending in unescaped white space and the next non-empty line
are considered to form one single line.
If EOF is reached and fewer than
*number*
lines have been read 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
*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.

-o

Reopen stdin as
*/dev/tty*
in the child process before executing the command.
This is useful if you want
**xargs**
to run an interactive application.

-P maxprocs

Parallel mode: run at most
*maxprocs*
invocations of
*utility*
at once.

-p

Echo each command to be executed and ask the user whether it should be
executed.
If the answer starts with
'`y`'
or
'`Y`',
the command is executed; otherwise it is 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 replacement in.
If
*replacements*
is negative, the number of arguments in which to replace is unbounded.

-r

Do not run the command if there are no arguments.
Normally the command is executed at least once
even if there are no arguments.

-s size

Set the maximum number of bytes for the command line length provided to
*utility*.
The sum of the length of the utility name, the arguments passed to
*utility*
(including
`NUL`
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) command 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 utility is terminated by a signal, or an invocation of utility exits with a value of 255.

EXIT STATUS #

xargs exits with one of the following values:

All invocations of
*utility*
returned a zero exit status.

123

One or more invocations of
*utility*
returned a nonzero exit status.

124

The
*utility*
exited with a 255 exit status.

125

The
*utility*
was killed or stopped by a signal.

126

The
*utility*
was found but could not be executed.

127

The
*utility*
could not be found.

Some other error occurred.

STANDARDS #

The xargs utility is compliant with the IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”) specification.

The flags [-IL] are marked by IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”) as being an X/Open System Interfaces option.

The flags [-0JoPRr] are extensions to IEEE Std 1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”).

The meanings of the 123, 124, and 125 exit values were taken from GNU xargs.

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.

OpenBSD 7.5 - July 19, 2020