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How do you use xargs with multiple commands?
To run multiple commands with xargs , use the -I option. It works by defining a replace-str after the -I option and all occurrences of the replace-str are replaced with the argument passed to xargs.
How do you pass arguments to xargs?
xargs command is designed to construct argument lists and invoke other utility. xargs reads items from the standard input or pipes, delimited by blanks or newlines, and executes the command one or more times with any initial-arguments followed by items read from standard input.
How to make xargs execute the command once for each line?
In this example, find feeds the input of xargs with a long list of file names. xargs then splits this list into sublists and calls rm once for every sublist. This is more efficient than this functionally equivalent version: I know that find has the “exec” flag. I am just quoting an illustrative example from another resource.
How can I use xargs to search files?
Use find to obtain a list of files that xargs feeds to grep as parameters to search each file for a textual string. The example above searches all log files in a directory tree for the text “error 57.” Delete files that match a search. The command above will find all files named thumbs.db and delete them.
How is the mkdir command executed in xargs?
By default xargs reads items from standard input as separated by blanks and executes a command once for each argument. In the following example standard input is piped to xargs and the mkdir command is run for each argument, creating three folders.
Why does xargs add the standard input at the end?
By default, the xargs command adds the standard input as argument at the end of the command. This creates a problem when you need to use that before the last argument. For example, if you use the move command, you need the source first and then the target. If you want to move the found files to a target directory, this command won’t work: