1.\" Copyright (c) 1990 The Regents of the University of California. 2.\" 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 5.5 (Berkeley) 6/27/91 37.\" 38.Dd June 27, 1991 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 48.Op Fl x 49.Fl n Ar number 50.Oc 51.Op Fl s Ar size 52.Oo 53.Ar utility 54.Op Ar argument Ar ... 55.Oc 56.Sh DESCRIPTION 57The 58.Nm xargs 59utility reads space, tab, newline and end-of-file delimited arguments 60from the standard input and executes the specified 61.Ar utility 62with them as arguments. 63.Pp 64The utility and any arguments specified on the command line are given 65to the 66.Ar utility 67upon each invocation, followed by some number of the arguments read 68from standard input. 69The 70.Ar utility 71is repeatedly executed until standard input is exhausted. 72.Pp 73Spaces, tabs and newlines may be embedded in arguments using single 74or double quotes or backslashes. 75Single quotes escape all non-single quote characters, excluding newlines, 76up to the matching single quote. 77Double quotes escape all non-double quote characters, excluding newlines, 78up to the matching double quote. 79Any single character, including newlines, may be escaped by a backslash. 80.Pp 81The options are as follows: 82.Bl -tag -width indent 83.It Fl n Ar number 84Set the maximum number of arguments taken from standard input for each 85invocation of the utility. 86An invocation of 87.Ar utility 88will use less than 89.Ar number 90standard input arguments if the number of bytes accumulated (see the 91.Fl s 92option) exceeds the specified 93.Ar size 94or there are fewer than 95.Ar number 96arguments remaining for the last invocation of 97.Ar utility . 98The current default value for 99.Ar number 100is 5000. 101.It Fl s Ar size 102Set the maximum number of bytes for the command line length provided to 103.Ar utility . 104The sum of the length of the utility name and the arguments passed to 105.Ar utility 106(including NULL terminators) will be less than or equal to this number. 107The current default value for 108.Ar size 109is 110.Dv ARG_MAX 111- 2048. 112.It Fl t 113Echo the command to be executed to standard error immediately before it 114is executed. 115.It Fl x 116Force 117.Nm xargs 118to terminate immediately if a command line containing 119.Ar number 120arguments will not fit in the specified (or default) command line length. 121.El 122.Pp 123If no 124.Ar utility 125is specified, 126.Xr echo 1 127is used. 128.Pp 129Undefined behavior may occur if 130.Ar utility 131reads from the standard input. 132.Sh DIAGNOSTICS 133.Nm xargs 134exits with one of the following values: 135.Bl -tag -width Ds -compact 136.It 0 137All invocations of 138.Ar utility 139returned a zero exit status. 140.It 123 141One or more invocations of 142.Ar utility 143returned a nonzero exit status. 144.It 124 145The 146.Ar utility 147exited with a 255 exit status. 148.It 125 149The 150.Ar utility 151was killed or stopped by a signal. 152.It 126 153The 154.Ar utility 155was found but could not be invoked. 156.It 127 157The 158.Ar utility 159could not be found. 160.It 1 161Some other error occured. 162.El 163.Sh "SEE ALSO" 164.Xr echo 1 , 165.Xr find 1 166.Sh STANDARDS 167.Nm xargs 168is expected to be 169.St -p1003.2 170compliant. 171.Sh HISTORY 172The meaning of 123, 124, and 125 exit values were taken from GNU xargs. 173