xargs.1 (2332B)
1 .Dd July 30, 2023 2 .Dt XARGS 1 3 .Os sbase 4 .Sh NAME 5 .Nm xargs 6 .Nd construct argument lists and execute command 7 .Sh SYNOPSIS 8 .Nm 9 .Op Fl rtx 10 .Op Fl E Ar eofstr 11 .Op Fl I Ar replstr 12 .Op Fl n Ar num 13 .Op Fl s Ar num 14 .Op Ar cmd Op Ar arg ... 15 .Sh DESCRIPTION 16 .Nm 17 reads space, tab, newline and EOF delimited strings from stdin 18 and executes the specified 19 .Ar cmd 20 with the strings as 21 .Ar arguments . 22 .Pp 23 Any arguments specified on the command line are given to the command upon 24 each invocation, followed by some number of the arguments read from 25 stdin. 26 The command is repeatedly executed one or more times until stdin is exhausted. 27 .Pp 28 Spaces, tabs and newlines may be embedded in arguments using single (`'') 29 or double (`"') quotes or backslashes ('\\'). 30 Single quotes escape all non-single quote characters, excluding newlines, up 31 to the matching single quote. 32 Double quotes escape all non-double quote characters, excluding newlines, up 33 to the matching double quote. 34 Any single character, including newlines, may be escaped by a backslash. 35 .Sh OPTIONS 36 .Bl -tag -width Ds 37 .It Fl n Ar num 38 Use at most 39 .Ar num 40 arguments per command line. 41 .It Fl r 42 Do not run the command if there are no arguments. 43 Normally the command is executed at least once even if there are no arguments. 44 .It Fl E Ar eofstr 45 Use 46 .Ar eofstr 47 as a logical EOF marker. 48 .It Fl I Ar replstr 49 Use 50 .Ar replstr 51 as the placeholder for the argument. 52 Sets the arguments count to 1 per command line. 53 It also implies the option x. 54 .It Fl s Ar num 55 Use at most 56 .Ar num 57 bytes per command line. 58 .It Fl t 59 Write the command line to stderr before executing it. 60 .It Fl x 61 Terminate if the command line exceeds the system limit or the number of bytes 62 given with the 63 .Op Fl s 64 flag. 65 .El 66 .Sh EXIT STATUS 67 .Nm 68 exits with one of the following values: 69 .Bl -tag -width Ds 70 .It 0 71 All invocations of 72 .Ar cmd 73 returned a zero exit status. 74 .It 123 75 One or more invocations of 76 .Ar cmd 77 returned a nonzero exit status. 78 .It 124 79 .Ar cmd 80 exited with a 255 exit status. 81 .It 125 82 .Ar cmd 83 was killed or stopped by a signal. 84 .It 126 85 .Ar cmd 86 was found but could not be executed. 87 .It 127 88 .Ar cmd 89 could not be found. 90 .It 1 91 Some other error occurred. 92 .El 93 .Sh STANDARDS 94 The 95 .Nm 96 utility is compliant with the 97 .St -p1003.1-2013 98 specification except from the 99 .Op Fl p 100 flag. 101 .Pp 102 The 103 .Op Fl r 104 flag is an extension to that specification.