1 .\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, 1993
2 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
4 .\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
5 .\" John B. Roll Jr. and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
8 .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
9 .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
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.
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
36 .\" @(#)xargs.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
44 .Nd "construct argument list(s) and execute utility"
53 .Op Ar utility Op Ar arguments ...
57 utility reads space, tab, newline and end-of-file delimited arguments
58 from the standard input and executes the specified
63 The utility and any arguments specified on the command line are given
66 upon each invocation, followed by some number of the arguments read
70 is repeatedly executed until standard input is exhausted.
72 Spaces, tabs and newlines may be embedded in arguments using single
75 or double (``"'') quotes or backslashes (``\e'').
76 Single quotes escape all non-single quote characters, excluding newlines,
77 up to the matching single quote.
78 Double quotes escape all non-double quote characters, excluding newlines,
79 up to the matching double quote.
80 Any single character, including newlines, may be escaped by a backslash.
82 The options are as follows:
83 .Bl -tag -width indent
89 characters as separators, instead of spaces and newlines.
90 This is expected to be used in concert with the
95 Set the maximum number of arguments taken from standard input for each
96 invocation of the utility.
101 standard input arguments if the number of bytes accumulated (see the
103 option) exceeds the specified
105 or there are fewer than
107 arguments remaining for the last invocation of
109 The current default value for
113 Set the maximum number of bytes for the command line length provided to
115 The sum of the length of the utility name and the arguments passed to
119 terminators) will be less than or equal to this number.
120 The current default value for
126 Echo the command to be executed to standard error immediately before it
131 to terminate immediately if a command line containing
133 arguments will not fit in the specified (or default) command line length.
142 Undefined behavior may occur if
144 reads from the standard input.
148 utility exits immediately (without processing any further input) if a
149 command line cannot be assembled,
151 cannot be invoked, an invocation of the utility is terminated by a signal
152 or an invocation of the utility exits with a value of 255.
156 utility exits with a value of 0 if no error occurs.
161 exits with a value of 127.
162 If any other error occurs,
164 exits with a value of 1.
171 utility is expected to be