sbase

suckless unix tools
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xargs.1 (2843B)

      1 .Dd July 30, 2025
      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 0prtx
     10 .Op Fl E Ar eofstr
     11 .Op Fl I Ar replstr
     12 .Op Fl n Ar num
     13 .Op Fl P Ar maxprocs
     14 .Op Fl s Ar num
     15 .Op Ar cmd Op Ar arg ...
     16 .Sh DESCRIPTION
     17 .Nm
     18 reads space, tab, newline and EOF delimited strings from stdin
     19 and executes the specified
     20 .Ar cmd
     21 with the strings as
     22 .Ar arguments .
     23 .Pp
     24 Any arguments specified on the command line are given to the command upon
     25 each invocation, followed by some number of the arguments read from
     26 stdin.
     27 The command is repeatedly executed one or more times until stdin is exhausted.
     28 .Pp
     29 Spaces, tabs and newlines may be embedded in arguments using single (`'')
     30 or double (`"') quotes or backslashes ('\e').
     31 Single quotes escape all non-single quote characters, excluding newlines, up
     32 to the matching single quote.
     33 Double quotes escape all non-double quote characters, excluding newlines, up
     34 to the matching double quote.
     35 Any single character, including newlines, may be escaped by a backslash.
     36 .Sh OPTIONS
     37 .Bl -tag -width Ds
     38 .It Fl 0
     39 Change
     40 .Nm
     41 to expect NUL ('\e0') characters as separators, instead of spaces
     42 and newlines.
     43 The quoting mechanisms described above are not performed.
     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 n Ar num
     55 Use at most
     56 .Ar num
     57 arguments per command line.
     58 .It Fl p
     59 Prompt mode: the user is asked whether to execute
     60 .Ar cmd
     61 at each invocation.
     62 Trace mode (-t) is turned on to write the command instance to be executed,
     63 followed by a prompt to standard error.
     64 An affirmative response read from
     65 .Pa /dev/tty
     66 executes the command, otherwise it is skipped.
     67 .It Fl P Ar maxprocs
     68 Parallel mode: run at most maxprocs invocations of
     69 .Ar cmd
     70 at once.
     71 .It Fl r
     72 Do not run the command if there are no arguments.
     73 Normally the command is executed at least once even if there are no arguments.
     74 .It Fl s Ar num
     75 Use at most
     76 .Ar num
     77 bytes per command line.
     78 .It Fl t
     79 Enable trace mode.
     80 Write the command line to stderr before executing it.
     81 .It Fl x
     82 Terminate if the command line exceeds the system limit or the number of bytes
     83 given with the
     84 .Op Fl s
     85 flag.
     86 .El
     87 .Sh EXIT STATUS
     88 .Nm
     89 exits with one of the following values:
     90 .Bl -tag -width Ds
     91 .It 0
     92 All invocations of
     93 .Ar cmd
     94 returned a zero exit status.
     95 .It 123
     96 One or more invocations of
     97 .Ar cmd
     98 returned a nonzero exit status.
     99 .It 124
    100 .Ar cmd
    101 exited with a 255 exit status.
    102 .It 125
    103 .Ar cmd
    104 was killed or stopped by a signal.
    105 .It 126
    106 .Ar cmd
    107 was found but could not be executed.
    108 .It 127
    109 .Ar cmd
    110 could not be found.
    111 .It 1
    112 Some other error occurred.
    113 .El
    114 .Sh STANDARDS
    115 POSIX.1-2013.
    116 .Pp
    117 The
    118 .Op Fl r
    119 and
    120 .Op Fl P
    121 flag is an extension to that specification.