1.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by 5.\" John B. Roll Jr. and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics 6.\" Engineers, Inc. 7.\" 8.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 9.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 10.\" are met: 11.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 12.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 13.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 14.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 15.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 16.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 17.\" must display the following acknowledgement: 18.\" This product includes software developed by the University of 19.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. 20.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 21.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 22.\" without specific prior written permission. 23.\" 24.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 25.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 26.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 27.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 28.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 29.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 30.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 31.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 32.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 33.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 34.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 35.\" 36.\" @(#)xargs.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93 37.\" $FreeBSD$ 38.\" $xMach: xargs.1,v 1.2 2002/02/23 05:23:37 tim Exp $ 39.\" 40.Dd May 7, 2001 41.Dt XARGS 1 42.Os 43.Sh NAME 44.Nm xargs 45.Nd "construct argument list(s) and execute utility" 46.Sh SYNOPSIS 47.Nm 48.Op Fl 0pt 49.Op Fl E Ar eofstr 50.Oo 51.Fl I Ar replstr 52.Op Fl R Ar replacements 53.Oc 54.Op Fl J Ar replstr 55.Op Fl L Ar number 56.Oo 57.Fl n Ar number 58.Op Fl x 59.Oc 60.Op Fl s Ar size 61.Op Ar utility Op Ar argument ... 62.Sh DESCRIPTION 63The 64.Nm 65utility reads space, tab, newline and end-of-file delimited arguments 66from the standard input and executes the specified 67.Ar utility 68with them as 69arguments. 70.Pp 71The utility and any arguments specified on the command line are given 72to the 73.Ar utility 74upon each invocation, followed by some number of the arguments read 75from standard input. 76The 77.Ar utility 78is repeatedly executed until standard input is exhausted. 79.Pp 80Spaces, tabs and newlines may be embedded in arguments using single 81(``\ '\ '') 82or double (``"'') quotes or backslashes (``\e''). 83Single quotes escape all non-single quote characters, excluding newlines, 84up to the matching single quote. 85Double quotes escape all non-double quote characters, excluding newlines, 86up to the matching double quote. 87Any single character, including newlines, may be escaped by a backslash. 88.Pp 89The options are as follows: 90.Bl -tag -width indent 91.It Fl 0 92Change 93.Nm 94to expect NUL 95(``\\0'') 96characters as separators, instead of spaces and newlines. 97This is expected to be used in concert with the 98.Fl print0 99function in 100.Xr find 1 . 101.It Fl E Ar eofstr 102Use 103.Ar eofstr 104as a logical EOF marker. 105.It Fl I Ar replstr 106Execute 107.Ar utility 108for each input line, replacing one or more occurences of 109.Ar replstr 110in up to 111.Ar replacements 112(or 5 if no 113.Fl R 114flag is specified) arguments to 115.Ar utility 116with the entire line of input. 117The resulting arguments, after replacement is done, will not be allowed to grow 118beyond 255 bytes; this is implemented by concatenating as much of the argument 119containing 120.Ar replstr 121as possible, to the constructed arguments to 122.Ar utility , 123up to 255 bytes. 124The 255 byte limit does not apply to arguments to 125.Ar utility 126which do not contain 127.Ar replstr , 128and furthermore, no replacement will be done on 129.Ar utility 130itself. 131Implies 132.Fl x . 133.It Fl J Ar replstr 134If this option is specified, 135.Nm 136will use the data read from standard input to replace the first occurrence of 137.Ar replstr 138instead of appending that data after all other arguments. 139This option will not effect how many arguments will be read from input 140.Pq Fl n , 141or the size of the command(s) 142.Nm 143will generate 144.Pq Fl s . 145The option just moves where those arguments will be placed in the command(s) 146that are executed. 147The 148.Ar replstr 149must show up as a distinct 150.Ar argument 151to 152.Nm . 153It will not be recognized if, for instance, it is in the middle of a 154quoted string. 155Furthermore, only the first occurrence of the 156.Ar replstr 157will be replaced. 158For example, the following command will copy the list of files and 159directories which start with an uppercase letter in the current 160directory to 161.Pa destdir : 162.Pp 163.Dl /bin/ls -1d [A-Z]* | xargs -J % cp -rp % destdir 164.Pp 165.It Fl L Ar number 166Call 167.Ar utility 168for every 169.Ar number 170lines read. 171If EOF is reached and fewer lines have been read than 172.Ar number 173then 174.Ar utility 175will be called with the available lines. 176.It Fl n Ar number 177Set the maximum number of arguments taken from standard input for each 178invocation of the utility. 179An invocation of 180.Ar utility 181will use less than 182.Ar number 183standard input arguments if the number of bytes accumulated (see the 184.Fl s 185option) exceeds the specified 186.Ar size 187or there are fewer than 188.Ar number 189arguments remaining for the last invocation of 190.Ar utility . 191The current default value for 192.Ar number 193is 5000. 194.It Fl p 195Echo each command to be executed and ask the user whether it should be 196executed. 197An affirmative response, 198.Ql y 199in the POSIX locale, 200causes the command to be executed, any other response causes it to be 201skipped. 202No commands are executed if the process is not attached to a terminal. 203.It Fl R Ar replacements 204Specify the maximum number of arguments that 205.Fl I 206will do replacement in. 207.It Fl s Ar size 208Set the maximum number of bytes for the command line length provided to 209.Ar utility . 210The sum of the length of the utility name, the arguments passed to 211.Ar utility 212(including 213.Dv NULL 214terminators) and the current environment will be less than or equal to 215this number. 216The current default value for 217.Ar size 218is 219.Dv ARG_MAX 220- 4096. 221.It Fl t 222Echo the command to be executed to standard error immediately before it 223is executed. 224.It Fl x 225Force 226.Nm 227to terminate immediately if a command line containing 228.Ar number 229arguments will not fit in the specified (or default) command line length. 230.El 231.Pp 232If no 233.Ar utility 234is specified, 235.Xr echo 1 236is used. 237.Pp 238Undefined behavior may occur if 239.Ar utility 240reads from the standard input. 241.Pp 242The 243.Nm 244utility exits immediately (without processing any further input) if a 245command line cannot be assembled, 246.Ar utility 247cannot be invoked, an invocation of the utility is terminated by a signal 248or an invocation of the utility exits with a value of 255. 249.Sh DIAGNOSTICS 250The 251.Nm 252utility exits with a value of 0 if no error occurs. 253If 254.Ar utility 255cannot be found, 256.Nm 257exits with a value of 127, otherwise if 258.Ar utility 259cannot be executed, 260.Nm 261exits with a value of 126. 262If any other error occurs, 263.Nm 264exits with a value of 1. 265.Sh SEE ALSO 266.Xr echo 1 , 267.Xr find 1 , 268.Xr execvp 3 269.Sh STANDARDS 270The 271.Nm 272utility is expected to be 273.St -p1003.2 274compliant. 275The 276.Fl J 277and 278.Fl R 279options are non-standard 280.Fx 281extensions which may not be available on other operating systems. 282.Sh HISTORY 283The 284.Nm 285command appeared in PWB UNIX. 286.Sh BUGS 287If 288.Ar utility 289attempts to invoke another command such that the number of arguments or the 290size of the environment is increased, it risks 291.Xr execvp 3 292failing with 293.Er E2BIG . 294