xargs

• Useful for piping command together but the commands do not accept piped input
• xargs can take the output from one command and send it to another command as parameters.
• xargs accepts piped input or file input and uses it to feed another command

# accepts space-separated or multiline input
echo 'one two three' | xargs # echo by default
echo 'one two three' | xargs echo # same
echo 'one two three' | xargs echo "zero" # xargs is "thread-last" by default

-p (--interactive)

• Ask for confirmation

echo 'one two three' | xargs -p # y to confirm

-r (--no-run-if-empty)

• Does not execute the command if the input is empty

echo "one two three" | xargs -r
echo "" | xargs -r # does not execute echo

-o

• Reopen stdin as /dev/tty in the child process before executing the command.
• This is useful if you want xargs to run an interactive application.

echo "one two three" | xargs -o

-I

• By default it is substituted in the last position (thread last)
• This flag allows replacing it anywhere in the command

echo "Henry" | xargs -I '{}' echo 'I am {}. I repeat, I am {}!'
xargs -I '{}' echo 'Number {}' < <(seq 1 5)
xargs -I '{}' echo 'Item {}' <items.txt