4.3BSD-Reno/src/usr.bin/xargs/xargs.1

.\" Copyright (c) 1990 The Regents of the University of California.
.\" All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
.\" John B. Roll Jr.
.\"
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.\"	@(#)xargs.1	5.1 (Berkeley) 4/17/90
.\"
.TH XARGS 1 "April 17, 1990"
.UC 7
.SH NAME
xargs \- construct argument list(s) and execute utility.
.SH SYNOPSIS
.ft B
xargs [\-t] [\-n number] [\-s size] [utility [argument ...]]
.ft R
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.I xargs utility
reads space, tab, and newline delimited arguments from the standard
input and executes the specified
.I utility
with them as arguments.
Any arguments specified on the command line are given to the
.I utility
upon each invocation, followed by some number of the arguments read
from standard input.
The
.I utility
is repeatedly executed until standard input is exhausted.
.PP
Spaces and tabs may be embedded in arguments using single (`` ' '') or
double (``"'') quotes or backslashes (``\e'').
Single or double quotes escape all characters to the next matching quote
character, backslashes escape the next character.
Newlines may not be escaped.
.PP
The following options are available:
.TP
-n number
Set the maximum number of arguments used from standard input for
each invocation of the utility.
An invocation of
.I utility
will use less than
.I number
standard input arguments if the number of bytes accumulated (see the
.I \-s
option) exceeds the specified size or the last invocation of
.I utility
has fewer than
.I number
arguments remaining.
The default value for
.I number
is 255.
.TP
-s size
Set the maximum number of bytes to which the last component of the
.I utility
name, the command-line arguments, and the arguments read in from
standard input may sum.
The default value for
.I size
is 2048.
.TP
-t
Echo the command to be executed to standard error immediately before it
is executed.
.PP
If no
.I utility
is specified,
.IR echo (1)
is used.
.PP
.I Utility
should never read from the standard input.
.PP
.I Xargs
exits with 0 if no error occurred, and 1 otherwise.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
echo(1)
.SH STANDARDS
The
.I xargs
utility is expected to be POSIX 1003.2 compliant.