xargs.1 (2158B)
1 .Dd 2015-10-08 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 n Ar num 12 .Op Fl s Ar num 13 .Op Ar cmd Op Ar arg ... 14 .Sh DESCRIPTION 15 .Nm 16 reads space, tab, newline and EOF delimited strings from stdin 17 and executes the specified 18 .Ar cmd 19 with the strings as 20 .Ar arguments . 21 .Pp 22 Any arguments specified on the command line are given to the command upon 23 each invocation, followed by some number of the arguments read from 24 stdin. The command is repeatedly executed one or more times until stdin 25 is exhausted. 26 .Pp 27 Spaces, tabs and newlines may be embedded in arguments using single (`'') 28 or double (`"') quotes or backslashes ('\\'). Single quotes escape all 29 non-single quote characters, excluding newlines, up to the matching single 30 quote. Double quotes escape all non-double quote characters, excluding 31 newlines, up to the matching double quote. Any single character, including 32 newlines, may be escaped by a backslash. 33 .Sh OPTIONS 34 .Bl -tag -width Ds 35 .It Fl n Ar num 36 Use at most 37 .Ar num 38 arguments per command line. 39 .It Fl r 40 Do not run the command if there are no arguments. Normally the command is 41 executed at least once even if there are no arguments. 42 .It Fl E Ar eofstr 43 Use 44 .Ar eofstr 45 as a logical EOF marker. 46 .It Fl s Ar num 47 Use at most 48 .Ar num 49 bytes per command line. 50 .It Fl t 51 Write the command line to stderr before executing it. 52 .It Fl x 53 Terminate if the command line exceeds the system limit or the number of bytes 54 given with the 55 .Op Fl s 56 flag. 57 .El 58 .Sh EXIT STATUS 59 .Nm 60 exits with one of the following values: 61 .Bl -tag -width Ds 62 .It 0 63 All invocations of 64 .Ar cmd 65 returned a zero exit status. 66 .It 123 67 One or more invocations of 68 .Ar cmd 69 returned a nonzero exit status. 70 .It 124 71 .Ar cmd 72 exited with a 255 exit status. 73 .It 125 74 .Ar cmd 75 was killed or stopped by a signal. 76 .It 126 77 .Ar cmd 78 was found but could not be executed. 79 .It 127 80 .Ar cmd 81 could not be found. 82 .It 1 83 Some other error occurred. 84 .El 85 .Sh STANDARDS 86 The 87 .Nm 88 utility is compliant with the 89 .St -p1003.1-2013 90 specification except from the 91 .Op Fl p 92 flag. 93 .Pp 94 The 95 .Op Fl r 96 flag is an extension to that specification.