HP-UX Reference (11i v3 07/02) - 1 User Commands N-Z (vol 2)

x
xargs(1) xargs(1)
-t Trace mode: The command and each constructed argument list are echoed to standard
error just prior to their execution.
-p Prompt mode: The user is asked whether to execute command prior to each invocation.
Trace mode (
-t
) is turned on to print the command instance to be executed, followed by a
?... prompt. An affirmative reply (by default, an affirmative reply is
y optionally fol-
lowed by anything) executes the command; anything else, including pressing Return, skips
that particular invocation of command.
-x Causes xargs to terminate if any argument list would be greater than size bytes.
-x is
forced by the options
-i, -I
, -l, and -L. When none of the options -i,
-I, -l, -L,or
-n is coded, the total length of all arguments must be within the size limit.
-e [eofstr] eofstr is taken as the logical end-of-file string. Underscore (
_) is assumed for the logical
EOF string if neither -e nor -E
is used. The value -e with eofstr given as the empty
string ( "" ) turns off the logical
EOF string capability (underscore is taken literally).
xargs reads standard input until either end-of-file or the logical
EOF string is encoun-
tered.
-E eofstr Specify a logical end-of-file string to replace the default underscore (
_) character.
Equivalent to the
-e option above.
xargs terminates if it receives a return code of −1 from command or if it cannot execute command. When
command is a shell program, it should explicitly
exit (see sh(1)) with an appropriate value to avoid
accidentally returning with −1.
RETURN VALUE
xargs exits with one of the following values:
0 All invocations of command completed successfully.
1 to 125 One or more invocations of command did not complete successfully.
126 The command specified was found but could not be invoked.
127 The command specified could not be found.
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES
Environment Variables
LC_CTYPE determines the space characters and the interpretation of text as single- and/or multibyte char-
acters.
LC_MESSAGES determines the language in which messages are displayed, and the local language
equivalent of an affirmative reply when the -p prompt option is specified.
If LC_CTYPE or LC_MESSAGES is not specified in the environment or is set to the empty string, the
value of LANG is used as a default for each unspecified or empty variable. If
LANG is not specified or is set
to the empty string, a default of "C" (see lang(5)) is used instead of
LANG.
If any internationalization variable contains an invalid setting,
xargs behaves as if all internationalization
variables are set to "C". See environ(5).
International Code Set Support
Single- and multibyte character code sets are supported.
EXAMPLES
Move all files from directory
$1 to directory $2, and echo each move command just before doing it:
ls $1 | xargs -i -t mv $1/{} $2/{}
Combine the output of the parenthesized commands onto one line, then echo to the end of file log:
(logname; date; echo $0 $*) | xargs >>log
Ask the user which files in the current directory are to be archived then archive them into arch one at a
time:
ls | xargs -p -l ar r arch
or many at a time:
HP-UX 11i Version 3: February 2007 − 2 − Hewlett-Packard Company 423