XARGS(1)						    BSD General Commands Manual 						  XARGS(1)

NAME

     xargs -- construct argument list(s) and execute utility

SYNOPSIS

     xargs [-0pt] [-E eofstr] [-I replstr [-R replacements]] [-J replstr] [-L number] [-n number [-x]] [-s size] [utility [argument ...]]

DESCRIPTION

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

     The utility and 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 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 char-
     acters, 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 (``'') characters as separators, instead of spaces and newlines.  This is expected to be used in concert
	     with the -print0 function in find(1).

     -E eofstr
	     Use eofstr as a logical EOF marker.

     -I replstr
	     Execute utility for each input line, replacing one or more occurences of replstr in up to replacements (or 5 if no -R flag is speci-
	     fied) 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 con-
	     structed 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 com-
	     mand 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 lines read.	If EOF is reached and fewer lines have been read than number 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 the 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.

     -p      Echo each command to be executed and ask the user whether it should be executed.  An affirmative response, 'y' in the POSIX locale,
	     causes the command to be executed, any other response causes it to be 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.

     -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 NULL 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 the utility is terminated by a signal or an invocation of the utility exits with a value of 255.

DIAGNOSTICS

     The xargs utility exits with a value of 0 if no error occurs.  If utility cannot be found, xargs exits with a value of 127, otherwise if
     utility cannot be executed, xargs exits with a value of 126.  If any other error occurs, xargs exits with a value of 1.

SEE ALSO

     echo(1), find(1), execvp(3)

STANDARDS

     The xargs utility is expected to be IEEE Std 1003.2 (``POSIX.2'') compliant.  The -J and -R options are non-standard FreeBSD extensions which
     may not be available on other operating systems.

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.

BSD
								    May 7, 2001 							       BSD