sbase/xargs.1

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.Dd March 22, 2015
.Dt XARGS 1
.Os sbase
.Sh NAME
.Nm xargs
.Nd construct argument lists and execute command
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl rtx
.Op Fl E Ar eofstr
.Op Fl n Ar num
.Op Fl s Ar num
.Op Ar cmd Op Ar arg ...
.Sh DESCRIPTION
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.Nm
reads space, tab, newline and EOF delimited strings from stdin
and executes the specified
.Ar cmd
with the strings as
.Ar arguments .
.Pp
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Any arguments specified on the command line are given to the command upon
each invocation, followed by some number of the arguments read from
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stdin. The command is repeatedly executed one or more times until stdin
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is exhausted.
.Pp
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Spaces, tabs and newlines may be embedded in arguments using single (`'')
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or double (`"') quotes or backslashes ('\\'). Single quotes escape all
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non-single quote characters, excluding newlines, up to the matching single
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quote. Double quotes escape all non-double quote characters, excluding
newlines, up to the matching double quote. Any single character, including
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newlines, may be escaped by a backslash.
.Sh OPTIONS
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl n Ar num
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Use at most
.Ar num
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arguments per command line.
.It Fl r
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Do not run the command if there are no arguments. Normally the command is
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executed at least once even if there are no arguments.
.It Fl E Ar eofstr
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Use
.Ar eofstr
as a logical EOF marker.
.It Fl s Ar num
Use at most
.Ar num
bytes per command line.
.It Fl t
Write the command line to stderr before executing it.
.It Fl x
Terminate if the command line exceeds the system limit or the number of bytes
given with the
.Op Fl s
flag.
.El
.Sh EXIT STATUS
.Nm
exits with one of the following values:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It 0
All invocations of
.Ar cmd
returned a zero exit status.
.It 123
One or more invocations of
.Ar cmd
returned a nonzero exit status.
.It 124
.Ar cmd
exited with a 255 exit status.
.It 125
.Ar cmd
was killed or stopped by a signal.
.It 126
.Ar cmd
was found but could not be executed.
.It 127
.Ar cmd
could not be found.
.It 1
Some other error occurred.
.El
.Sh STANDARDS
The
.Nm
utility is compliant with the
.St -p1003.1-2008
specification except from prompting with the
.Op Fl p
flag.
.Pp
The
.Op Fl r
flag is an extension to that specification.