-----Original Message----- From: centos-bounces@centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces@centos.org] On Behalf Of neubyr Sent: 17/05/2011 06:36 To: CentOS mailing list Subject: [CentOS] xargs with max each line / argument
How do I pass xargs input one line at a time to subsequent command? For example I want to install rubygems by reading a text file as shown below, however the arguments are getting passed all at once to the 'gem install' command. I hace tried -L (max-lines) and -n (max args) options, but it didn't work. What's missing here?? Any help?
$ cat gem.list.1 mkrf rake xmlparser
$ awk '{ print $0 }' gem.list.1 | xargs -L 1 -0 -I name sudo gem install name ERROR: could not find gem mkrf rake xmlparser locally or in a repository
thanks, neuby.r
Hi.
As others have mentioned, a simple cat or use of < into xargs will simplify things. The max-args switch _is_ the one you are looking for:
--max-args=max-args, -n max-args
Spceifically:
cat gem.list.1 | xargs --max-args=1 sudo gem install
will do what you want, I think - please test it first. You could add --interactive to xargs to help with this, or even just:
cat gem.list.1 | xargs --max-args=1 echo sudo gem install
which will just dump the commands that would be run (using echo).
hth Andy