10 xargs command example in Linux - Unix tutorial

with and without xargs
you can clearly see that multiline output is converted into single line:
find . -name "*bash*" | xargs
xargs and grep
find . -name "*.java" | xargs grep "Stock"
delete temporary file using find and xargs
find /tmp -name "*.tmp" | xargs rm
xargs -0 to handle space in file name
find /tmp -name "*.tmp" -print0 | xargs -0 rm
xargs and cut command in Unix
cut -d, -f1 smartphones.csv | sort | xargs
Counting number of lines in each file using xargs and find
ls -1 *.txt | xargs wc -l
Passing subset of arguments to xargs in Linux.
when used with xargs you can use flag "-n" to instruct xargs on how many argument it should pass to given command. this xargs command line option is extremely useful on certain situation like repeatedly doing diff etc
ls -1 *.txt | xargs -n 2 echo
avoid "Argument list too long"
xargs in unix or Linux was initially use to avoid "Argument list too long" errors and by using xargs you send sub-list to any command which is shorter than "ARG_MAX" and that's how xargs avoid "Argument list too long" error. You can see current value of "ARG_MAX" by using getconf ARG_MAX.

find –exec vs find + xargs

xargs with find command is much faster than using -exec on find. since -exec runs for each file while xargs operates on sub-list level. to give an example if you need to change permission of 10000 files xargs with find will be almost 10K time faster than find with -exec because xargs change permission of all file at once

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xargs: How To Control and Use Command Line Arguments

utility. xargs reads items from the standard input or pipes, delimited by blanks or newlines, and executes the command one or more times with any initial-arguments followed by items read from standard input. Blank lines on the standard input are ignored.
echo 1 2 3 4 | xargs echo
Find all .bak files in or below the current directory and delete them.
find . -name "*.bak" -type f -print | xargs /bin/rm -f
{} as the argument list marker
{} is the default argument list marker. You need to use {} this with various command which take more than two arguments at a time. For example mv command need to know the file name. The following will find all .bak files in or below the current directory and move them to ~/.old.files directory:
find . -name "*.bak" -print0 | xargs -0 -I {} mv {} ~/old.files
You can rename {} to something else. In the following example {} is renamed as file. This is more readable as compare to previous example:
find . -name "*.bak" -print0 | xargs -0 -I file mv file ~/old.files
Avoiding errors and resource hungry problems with xargs and find combo
find /share/media/mp3/ -type f -name "*.mp3" -print0 | xargs -0 -r -I file cp -v -p file --target-directory=/bakup/iscsi/mp3

Reference: http://www.computerhope.com/unix/xargs.htm
--null, -0 Input items are terminated by a null character instead of by whitespace, and the quotes and backslash are not special (every character is taken literally). Disables the end-of-file string, which is treated like any other argument. Useful when input items might contain white space, quote marks, or backslashes. The find -print0 option produces input suitable for this mode.

find /tmp -name core -type f -print | xargs /bin/rm -f
Find files named core in or below the directory /tmp and delete them. (Note that this will work incorrectly if there are any filenames containing newlines or spaces.)
find /tmp -name core -type f -print0 | xargs -0 /bin/rm -f
find /tmp -depth -name core -type f -delete
Find files named core in or below the directory /tmp and delete them, but more efficiently than in the previous example (because we avoid the need to use fork and exec rm, and we don't need the extra xargs process).
cut -d: -f1 < /etc/passwd | sort | xargs echo
Uses cut to generate a compact listing of all the users on the system.

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