BSD (darwin too)
Number of replacments for -I. Default: 5
Will not affect how many arguments will be read from input (-n), or
the size of the command(s) xargs will generate (-s).
repl-str must occur as a distinct argument, not within a quoted string.
Example: 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 % destdir
--verbose
-t Before executing the constructed command, display it on STDERR
| --interactive
-p Prompt before executing each command.
Implies --verbose.
| --null
-0
STDIN-args (perhaps piped from another process like find) are terminated by a null
allowing the processing of filenames with embedded special characters like spaces, quotes or backslashes.
find -print0 is compatible with --null.
", \ etc are not special (all characters are taken literally).
Disables the eof-str.
| --delimiter=delim
-d delim
Input items are terminated by delim.
When input items separated by newlines as with ls
†
--null may be a better option if delimeter is a null.).
Quotes and backslash are not special; i.e. they are taken literally.
Disables the eof-str string, which is treated like any other argument.
Multibyte characters are not supported.
|
-E eof-str
-e ƥ[eof-str]
--eof[=eof-str]
Processing input ends when eof-str is encountered.
If eof-str is null ( as it might be in a script) it is ignored .
public_html >ls |xargs --eof=500.cgi grep robots {}
| --arg-file=file
-a file
Read items from file not stdin.
stdin is unchanged when commands are run. Otherwise, stdin is redirected from /dev/null.
|
--max-chars=max-chars
-s max-chars
Limit command line to max-chars including the
command and common arguments and the terminating nulls at the
ends of the argument strings. The default is 20k characters.
|
--max-lines[=max-lines]
-l[max-lines]
Use at most max-lines nonblank input lines per command line, default :1
Trailing blanks cause an input line to be logically continued on the next input line!
Implies --exit.
| --no-run-if-empty
-r
If STDIN-arg does not contain strings, do not run command.
Default: Command is run once even if there is no input.
| --exit
-x Exit if max-chars is exceeded.
Use --max-args with --interactive; otherwise chances are that only one exec will be done.
| --max-procs=max-procs
-P max-procs
Run up to max-procs processes at a time; default 1.
If max-procs is 0(bad), xargs will run as many processes as possible at a time.
This will cause the system_process_table
to fill up resulting in some process (not necessarily your's) partially completing, some being skipped and general mayhem.
If a process sub-shells a dozen times and xargs starts 100, that's 1200! See ulimit
| --help Output a summary of options and exit.
xargs --help
Usage: xargs [-0prtx] [--interactive] [--null] [-d|--delimiter=delim]
[-E eof-str] [-e[eof-str]] [--eof[=eof-str]]
[-L max-lines] [-l[max-lines]] [--max-lines[=max-lines]]
[-I replace-str] [-i[replace-str]] [--replace[=replace-str]]
[-n max-args] [--max-args=max-args]
[-s max-chars] [--max-chars=max-chars]
[-P max-procs] [--max-procs=max-procs] [--show-limits]
[--verbose] [--exit] [--no-run-if-empty] [--arg-file=file]
[--version] [--help] [cmd [initial-arguments]]
| --versionxargs (GNU findutils) 4.4.2
Mac OS is distributed with
usage: xargs [-0opt] [-E eofstr] [-I replstr [-R replacements]] [-J replstr]
[-L number] [-n number [-x]] [-P maxprocs] [-s size] [utility [argument …]]
At Midphase i.,e, Real-Wolrld-Systems.com : xargs (GNU findutils) 4.5.11
Raspberry Pi 10 (buster) xargs (GNU findutils) 4.6.0.225-235f
Raspberry Pi 12 (bookworm) xargs (GNU findutils) 4.9.0
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