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How to execute xargs once for each line of input?
Summary: If you want to execute the command “exactly once for each line of input,” passing the entire line (without newline) to the command as a single argument, then this is the best UNIX-compatible way to do it: | tr ‘ ‘ ‘\\0’ | xargs -0 -n1
How to use L MAX-lines in xargs?
-L max-lines Use at most max-lines nonblank input lines per command line. Trailing blanks cause an input line to be logically continued on the next input line. Implies -x. It seems to me all existing answers on this page are wrong, including the one marked as correct. That stems from the fact that the question is ambiguously worded.
How to limit the number of calls to xargs?
If you then need to limit the number of calls you can use the -n 1 argument to make one call to the program for each input: This also allows you to filter the output of find before converting the breaks into nulls. These two ways also work, and will work for other commands that are not using find!
How to find the default behavior of xargs?
Its default behavior is to chunk the input into arguments and execute the command as few times as possible, passing multiple arguments to each instance. then the answer is -n 1. Let’s compare xargs’ default behavior, which splits the input around whitespace and calls the command as few times as possible:
How to use xargs with multiple arguments in SED?
You can use sed to prefix –file= to each line and then call xargs: It’s simpler if you use two xargs invocations: 1st to transform each line into –file=…, 2nd to actually do the xargs thing ->
When to use fewer than max args in xargs?
Fewer than max-args arguments will be used if the size (see the -s option) is exceeded, unless the -x option is given, in which case xargs will exit. @Draemon answers seems to be right with “-0” even with space in the file.
How are blank lines ignored in xargs ( 1 )?
Blank lines on the standard input are ignored. The command line for command is built up until it reaches a system-defined limit (unless the -n and -L options are used). The specified command will be invoked as many times as necessary to use up the list of input items.
What happens when xargs is set to 255?
If any invocation of the command exits with a status of 255, xargs will stop immediately without reading any further input. An error message is issued on stderr when this happens.