| 1 | .\" Copyright (c) 1990 The Regents of the University of California.
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| 2 | .\" All rights reserved.
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| 3 | .\"
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| 4 | .\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
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| 5 | .\" John B. Roll Jr. and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
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| 6 | .\" Engineers, Inc.
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| 7 | .\"
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| 8 | .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
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| 9 | .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
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| 10 | .\" are met:
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| 11 | .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
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| 12 | .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
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| 13 | .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
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| 14 | .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
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| 15 | .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
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| 16 | .\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
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| 17 | .\" must display the following acknowledgement:
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| 18 | .\" This product includes software developed by the University of
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| 19 | .\" California, Berkeley and its contributors.
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| 20 | .\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
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| 21 | .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
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| 22 | .\" without specific prior written permission.
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| 23 | .\"
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| 24 | .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
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| 25 | .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
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| 26 | .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
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| 27 | .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
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| 28 | .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
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| 29 | .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
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| 30 | .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
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| 31 | .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
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| 32 | .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
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| 33 | .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
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| 34 | .\" SUCH DAMAGE.
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| 35 | .\"
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| 36 | .\" @(#)xargs.1 5.5 (Berkeley) 6/27/91
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| 37 | .\"
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| 38 | .TH XARGS 1 "June 27, 1991"
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| 39 | .UC 7
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| 40 | .SH NAME
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| 41 | xargs \- construct argument list(s) and execute utility.
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| 42 | .SH SYNOPSIS
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| 43 | .B xargs
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| 44 | .RB [ \-ft0 ]
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| 45 | .RB [[ \-x ]
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| 46 | .B \-n
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| 47 | .IR number ]
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| 48 | .RB [ \-s
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| 49 | .IR size ]
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| 50 | .RI [ utility
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| 51 | .RI [ argument " ...]]"
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| 52 | .SH DESCRIPTION
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| 53 | The
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| 54 | .B xargs
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| 55 | utility reads space, tab, newline and end-of-file delimited arguments
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| 56 | from the standard input and executes the specified
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| 57 | .I utility
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| 58 | with them as arguments.
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| 59 | .PP
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| 60 | The utility and any arguments specified on the command line are given
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| 61 | to the
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| 62 | .I utility
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| 63 | upon each invocation, followed by some number of the arguments read
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| 64 | from standard input.
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| 65 | The
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| 66 | .I utility
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| 67 | is repeatedly executed until standard input is exhausted.
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| 68 | .PP
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| 69 | Spaces, tabs and newlines may be embedded in arguments using single (`` ' '')
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| 70 | or double (``"'') quotes or backslashes (``\e'').
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| 71 | Single quotes escape all non-single quote characters, excluding newlines,
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| 72 | up to the matching single quote.
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| 73 | Double quotes escape all non-double quote characters, excluding newlines,
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| 74 | up to the matching double quote.
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| 75 | Any single character, including newlines, may be escaped by a backslash.
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| 76 | .PP
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| 77 | The options are as follows:
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| 78 | .TP
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| 79 | .B \-f
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| 80 | Force
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| 81 | .B xargs
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| 82 | to ignore the exit status returned by
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| 83 | .IR utility .
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| 84 | By default,
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| 85 | .B xargs
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| 86 | will exit immediately if
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| 87 | .I utility
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| 88 | exits with a non-zero exit status.
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| 89 | This does not include ignoring
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| 90 | .I utility
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| 91 | exiting due to a signal or without calling
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| 92 | .BR exit (2).
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| 93 | .TP
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| 94 | .BI \-n " number"
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| 95 | Set the maximum number of arguments taken from standard input for each
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| 96 | invocation of the utility.
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| 97 | An invocation of
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| 98 | .I utility
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| 99 | will use less than
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| 100 | .I number
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| 101 | standard input arguments if the number of bytes accumulated (see the
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| 102 | .I \-s
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| 103 | option) exceeds the specified
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| 104 | .I size
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| 105 | or there are fewer than
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| 106 | .I number
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| 107 | arguments remaining for the last invocation of
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| 108 | .IR utility .
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| 109 | The current default value for
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| 110 | .I number
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| 111 | is 5000.
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| 112 | .TP
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| 113 | .BI \-s " size"
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| 114 | Set the maximum number of bytes for the command line length provided to
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| 115 | .IR utility .
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| 116 | The sum of the length of the utility name and the arguments passed to
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| 117 | .I utility
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| 118 | (including NULL terminators) will be less than or equal to this number.
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| 119 | The current default value for
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| 120 | .I size
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| 121 | is ARG_MAX - 2048.
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| 122 | .TP
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| 123 | .B \-t
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| 124 | Echo the command to be executed to standard error immediately before it
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| 125 | is executed.
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| 126 | .TP
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| 127 | .B \-x
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| 128 | Force
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| 129 | .B xargs
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| 130 | to terminate immediately if a command line containing
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| 131 | .I number
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| 132 | arguments will not fit in the specified (or default) command line length.
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| 133 | .TP
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| 134 | .B \-0
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| 135 | Read null-byte terminated pathnames from standard input as may have been
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| 136 | produced by the
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| 137 | .B \-print0
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| 138 | option of
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| 139 | .BR find (1).
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| 140 | This is a MINIX 3 specific extension to
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| 141 | .BR xargs .
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| 142 | .PP
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| 143 | If no
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| 144 | .I utility
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| 145 | is specified,
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| 146 | .BR echo (1)
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| 147 | is used.
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| 148 | .PP
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| 149 | Undefined behavior may occur if
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| 150 | .I utility
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| 151 | reads from the standard input.
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| 152 | .PP
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| 153 | .B Xargs
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| 154 | exits with an exit status of 0 if no error occurs.
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| 155 | If
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| 156 | .I utility
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| 157 | cannot be invoked, is terminated by a signal or terminates without
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| 158 | calling
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| 159 | .BR exit (2),
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| 160 | .B xargs
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| 161 | exits with an exit status of 127.
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| 162 | If
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| 163 | .I utility
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| 164 | exits with an exit status other than 0,
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| 165 | .B xargs
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| 166 | exits with that exit status.
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| 167 | Otherwise,
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| 168 | .B xargs
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| 169 | exits with an exit status of 1.
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| 170 | .SH "SEE ALSO"
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| 171 | .BR echo (1),
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| 172 | .BR find (1).
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| 173 | .SH STANDARDS
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| 174 | The
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| 175 | .B xargs
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| 176 | utility is expected to be POSIX 1003.2 compliant.
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