echo 'one two three' | xargs mkdir
ls
one two three# Basic syntax:
<command_1> | xargs <command_2>
# Where:
# - the stdout of command_1 gets piped to xargs which executes command_2 on
# every space, tab, or new-line-delimited input
# Note:
# - this is similar to find..exec, but xargs is faster and more versatile
# - xargs allows tools like rm to accept standard input as arguments
# Example usage 1:
# Say you want to change the permissions of all directories and subdirectories
# of the current directory. You can run:
find . -type d | xargs chmod 777
# Note:
# - the -t flag causes xargs to print each command that will be executed
# to the terminal, which is useful for debugging
# - the -p flag will print the command to be executed and prompt the
# user to run it, which is also useful for debugging
# Example usage 2 (somewhat advanced):
find . -maxdepth 2 -type f -iname "*name*" | xargs -I {} sh -c "grep -l word1 $(grep -l word2 {})"
# Where:
# - the find command identifies all files in the current directory and
# subdirectories up to a depth of 1 that contain "name" in their
# file name in a case-insensitive manner and pipes them to xargs
# - -I specifies a string that will be replaced by the stdin when found (which
# is useful for controlling where the piped content appears in the
# xargs command)
# - sh -c runs the shell command in quotes which can be used to do command
# substitution in xargs# xargs
## -d assign delimiter (defaul is blank char or
)
xargs -d :