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.\" 38.Dd June 6, 1993 39.Dt XARGS 1 40.Os 41.Sh NAME 42.Nm xargs 43.Nd "construct argument list(s) and execute utility" 44.Sh SYNOPSIS 45.Nm xargs 46.Op Fl t 47.Oo Op Fl x 48.Fl n Ar number 49.Oc 50.Op Fl s Ar size 51.Op Ar utility Op Ar arguments ... 52.Sh DESCRIPTION 53The 54.Nm xargs 55utility reads space, tab, newline and end-of-file delimited arguments 56from the standard input and executes the specified 57.Ar utility 58with them as 59arguments. 60.Pp 61The utility and any arguments specified on the command line are given 62to the 63.Ar utility 64upon each invocation, followed by some number of the arguments read 65from standard input. 66The 67.Ar utility 68is repeatedly executed until standard input is exhausted. 69.Pp 70Spaces, tabs and newlines may be embedded in arguments using single 71(``\ '\ '') 72.Ek 73or double (``"'') quotes or backslashes (``\e''). 74Single quotes escape all non-single quote characters, excluding newlines, 75up to the matching single quote. 76Double quotes escape all non-double quote characters, excluding newlines, 77up to the matching double quote. 78Any single character, including newlines, may be escaped by a backslash. 79.Pp 80The options are as follows: 81.Bl -tag -width indent 82.It Fl n Ar number 83Set the maximum number of arguments taken from standard input for each 84invocation of the utility. 85An invocation of 86.Ar utility 87will use less than 88.Ar number 89standard input arguments if the number of bytes accumulated (see the 90.Fl s 91option) exceeds the specified 92.Ar size 93or there are fewer than 94.Ar number 95arguments remaining for the last invocation of 96.Ar utility . 97The current default value for 98.Ar number 99is 5000. 100.It Fl s Ar size 101Set the maximum number of bytes for the command line length provided to 102.Ar utility . 103The sum of the length of the utility name and the arguments passed to 104.Ar utility 105(including 106.Dv NULL 107terminators) will be less than or equal to this number. 108The current default value for 109.Ar size 110is 111.Dv ARG_MAX 112- 2048. 113.It Fl t 114Echo the command to be executed to standard error immediately before it 115is executed. 116.It Fl x 117Force 118.Nm xargs 119to terminate immediately if a command line containing 120.Ar number 121arguments will not fit in the specified (or default) command line length. 122.El 123.Pp 124If no 125.Ar utility 126is specified, 127.Xr echo 1 128is used. 129.Pp 130Undefined behavior may occur if 131.Ar utility 132reads from the standard input. 133.Pp 134The 135.Nm xargs 136utility exits immediately (without processing any further input) if a 137command line cannot be assembled, 138.Ar utility 139cannot be invoked, an invocation of the utility is terminated by a signal 140or an invocation of the utility exits with a value of 255. 141.Pp 142The 143.Nm xargs 144utility exits with a value of 0 if no error occurs. 145If 146.Ar utility 147cannot be invoked, 148.Nm xargs 149exits with a value of 127. 150If any other error occurs, 151.Nm xargs 152exits with a value of 1. 153.Sh SEE ALSO 154.Xr echo 1 , 155.Xr find 1 156.Sh STANDARDS 157The 158.Nm xargs 159utility is expected to be 160.St -p1003.2 161compliant. 162