Commands tagged xargs sorted by votes

Commands tagged xargs (148)

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xargs for builtin bash commands

Similar to xargs -i, but works with builtin bash commands (rather than running "bash -c ..." through xargs)
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

xargsb() { while read -r cmd; do ${@//'{}'/$cmd}; done; }

BobbyTables · 2010-09-28 06:35:39 8
Monitor a file with tail with timestamps added
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

tail -f file |xargs -IX printf "$(date -u)\t%s\n" X

unefunge · 2010-11-25 11:23:13 6
xargs for builtin bash commands
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

bargs { while read i; do "$@" "$i"; done }

wytten · 2011-01-06 19:25:43 5

rename file name with fixed length nomeric format pattern Show Sample Output

ls *.jpg | awk -F'.' '{ printf "%s %04d.%s\n", $0, $1, $2; }' | xargs -n2 mv

hute37 · 2011-05-01 13:32:58 7

Quickly add a new user to all groups the default user is in

This is a standard procedure for me, whenever I set up a new Raspberry Pi system. Because the default user is "pi", I quickly replace it with my own (e.g. "kostis"), but I have to substitute that user to all of pi's groups first, before deleting the default account. xargs helps a lot with that in a single line, while avoiding boring "for" loops. For everything trickier, there's always "parallel" :)
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

groups pi | xargs -n 1 | tail -n +4 | xargs -n 1 sudo adduser kostis

kostis · 2022-01-25 07:20:09 568
Backup all starred repositories from Github
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

GITUSER=$(whoami); curl "https://api.github.com/users/${GITUSER}/starred?per_page=1000" | grep -o 'git@[^"]*' | xargs -L1 git clone

wuseman1 · 2022-06-25 20:39:12 545
Unzip 25 zip files files at once
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

find . -maxdepth 1 -name '*.zip' -print0 | xargs -0 -I {} -P 25 unzip {}

wuseman1 · 2022-11-20 14:07:44 502
Ultimate current directory usage command

Based on the MrMerry one, just add some visuals and sort directory and files
This is sample output - yours may be different.
2

find . -maxdepth 1 -type d|xargs du -a --max-depth=0|sort -rn|cut -d/ -f2|sed '1d'|while read i;do echo "$(du -h --max-depth=0 "$i")/";done;find . -maxdepth 1 -type f|xargs du -a|sort -rn|cut -d/ -f2|sed '$d'|while read i;do du -h "$i";done

nickwe · 2009-09-03 20:33:21 5
Short Information about loaded kernel modules

Run this as root, it will be helpful to quickly get information about the loaded kernel modules. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
# lsmod | cut -d' ' -f1 | xargs modinfo | egrep '^file|^desc|^dep' | sed -e'/^dep/s/$/\n/g'
filename:       /lib/modules/2.6.26-2-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/usb/cdc_ether.ko
description:    USB CDC Ethernet devices
depends:        usbnet

filename:       /lib/modules/2.6.26-2-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/usb/usbnet.ko
description:    USB network driver framework
depends:        mii
```
2

lsmod | cut -d' ' -f1 | xargs modinfo | egrep '^file|^desc|^dep' | sed -e'/^dep/s/$/\n/g'

mohan43u · 2009-11-17 02:13:34 4
Find how much of your life you've wasted coding in the current directory

Finds all C++, Python, SWIG files in your present directory (uses "*" rather than "." to exclude invisibles) and counts how many lines are in them. Returns only the last line (the total). Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
55570 total
```
2

find * $ -name "*.[hc]pp" -or -name "*.py" -or -name "*.i" $ -print0 | xargs -0 wc -l | tail -n 1

neologism · 2010-03-25 18:58:29 5
Kill multiple instances of a running process
This is sample output - yours may be different.
2

killall -9 rouge-process

pepin · 2010-05-09 22:41:22 5
Find files and list them sorted by modification time

Works with files containing spaces and for very large directories.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
2

find -type f -print0 | xargs -r0 stat -c %y\ %n | sort

dooblem · 2010-05-29 13:40:18 11
Recursive grep of all c++ source under the current directory

I like this better than some of the alternatives using -exec, because if I want to change the string, it's right there at the end of the command line. That means less editing effort and more time to drink coffee. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
pbrannan@random:~/git/rice> find . -name '*.?pp' | xargs grep -H include.*map
./rice/Data_Type_defn.hpp:#include <map>
./sample/map/map.cpp:#include <map>
./test/test_Hash.cpp:#include <map>
./test/unittest.cpp:#include <map>
```
2

find . -name '*.?pp' | xargs grep -H "string"

cout · 2010-07-14 14:41:07 6
give me back my sound card

for when a program is hogging the sound output. finds, and kills. add -9 to the end for wedged processes. add in 'grep ^program' after lsof to filter. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
$
```
2

lsof /dev/snd/pcm*p /dev/dsp | awk ' { print $2 }' | xargs kill

alustenberg · 2010-07-23 20:24:16 21
Annoying PROMPT_COMMAND animation

unset PROMPT_COMMAND to disable. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
$                                                                              @
```
2

PROMPT_COMMAND='seq $COLUMNS | xargs -IX printf "%Xs\r" @'

unefunge · 2010-11-24 14:34:21 41
Link a deep tree of files all into on directory

If you want to pull all of the files from a tree that has mixed files and directories containing files, this will link them all into a single directory. Beware of filesystem files-per-directory limits.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
2

find /deep/tree/ -type f -print0|xargs -0 -n1 -I{} ln -s '{}' .

dinomite · 2010-12-21 13:00:33 8
Multi-thread any command

For instance: find . -type f -name '*.wav' -print0 |xargs -0 -P 3 -n 1 flac -V8 will encode all .wav files into FLAC in parallel. Explanation of xargs flags: -P [max-procs]: Max number of invocations to run at once. Set to 0 to run all at once [potentially dangerous re: excessive RAM usage]. -n [max-args]: Max number of arguments from the list to send to each invocation. -0: Stdin is a null-terminated list. I use xargs to build parallel-processing frameworks into my scripts like the one here: http://pastebin.com/1GvcifYa
This is sample output - yours may be different.
2

xargs -P 3 -n 1 <COMMAND> < <FILE_LIST>

h3xx · 2011-07-25 22:53:32 36

Tells you everything you could ever want to know about all files and subdirectories. Great for package creators. Totally secure too. On my Slackware box, this gets set upon login: LS_OPTIONS='-F -b -T 0 --color=auto' and alias ls='/bin/ls $LS_OPTIONS' which works great. Show Sample Output

This is sample output - yours may be different.

=[9 h3xx@necronomicon ~ ]= $ lsr ~/.cron
drwx------ 10 h3xx users  304 Aug 13 01:45 /home/h3xx/.cron/
drwx------  2 h3xx users  264 Aug 14 03:09 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.01d/
-rwxr-xr-x  1 h3xx users  466 Jun 10 13:10 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.01d/clean-chrome-tmp.sh*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 h3xx users 4973 Aug 13 22:59 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.01d/clean-maildirs.sh*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 h3xx users  117 Aug  9 18:32 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.01d/clean-thumbscache.sh*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 h3xx users   50 Aug 10  2010 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.01d/linuxcounter.sh*
-rw-r--r--  1 h3xx users 1264 Oct 12  2007 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.01d/mkbackups.sh
-rw-------  1 h3xx users  375 Oct  7  2005 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.01d/rcsync.sh
drwx------  2 h3xx users  224 Aug 13 09:14 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.01h/
-rw-r--r--  1 h3xx users  937 Dec 31  2010 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.01h/.bash-history.sh-notworking
-rwxr-xr-x  1 h3xx users  433 Aug 13 09:14 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.01h/getmail-3.sh*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 h3xx users 4427 Jul  6  2010 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.01h/randsig.pl*
-rw-r--r--  1 h3xx users 1358 Aug 17  2010 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.01h/stupid-curl
-rwxr-xr-x  1 h3xx users  172 Aug 13 00:09 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.01h/waffles-log.sh*
drwxr-xr-x  2 h3xx users   80 Dec 31  2010 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.01m/
-rw-------  1 h3xx users  218 Mar 27  2006 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.01m/vidcap.sh
drwx--x--x  2 h3xx users   48 Mar 21  2008 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.05m/
drwx------  2 h3xx users  160 Aug  2 03:31 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.07d/
-rwxr-xr-x  1 h3xx users  140 Apr 20  2009 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.07d/clean-vim-views.sh*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 h3xx users  165 Apr 17  2008 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.07d/insert_bash_history.sh*
-rwx--x--x  1 h3xx users   92 Sep 28  2010 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.07d/logrotate.sh*
drwxr-xr-x  2 h3xx users   80 Aug 14 03:09 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.15m/
-rwxr-xr-x  1 h3xx users  433 Aug 13 09:14 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.15m/getmail-1.sh*
drwxr-xr-x  2 h3xx users   96 Aug 14 03:09 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.30d/
-rwxr-xr-x  1 h3xx users  752 Aug 13 23:50 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.30d/bogofilter-db-maintenance.sh*
drwx------  2 h3xx users  144 Aug 13 09:14 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.30m/
-rwxr-xr-x  1 h3xx users  367 Jan 23  2010 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.30m/dyndns-update*
-rw-r--r--  1 h3xx users  433 Aug 13 09:14 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.30m/getmail-2.sh
lrwxrwxrwx  1 h3xx users   26 Aug 18  2008 /home/h3xx/.cron/cron.30m/process-spam.sh -> ../../libs/process-spam.sh
-rwx--x--x  1 h3xx users 4125 Aug 13 01:41 /home/h3xx/.cron/install-crontab*
-rwx--x--x  1 h3xx users 4122 Aug 13 01:34 /home/h3xx/.cron/install-crontab~*
=[9 h3xx@necronomicon ~ ]= $

lsr() { find "${@:-.}" -print0 |sort -z |xargs -0 ls $LS_OPTIONS -dla; }

h3xx · 2011-08-15 03:10:58 4

Download files linked in a RSS feed

The difference between the original version provided and this one is that this one works rather than outputting a wget error
This is sample output - yours may be different.
2

curl $1 | grep -E "http.*\.mp3" | sed "s/.*$http.*\.mp3$.*/\1/" | xargs wget

theodric · 2015-09-17 13:19:53 30
Use find to get around Argument list too long problem

Can be used for other commands as well, replace rm with ls. It is easy to make this shorter but if the filenames involved have spaces, you will need to do use find's "-print0" option in conjunction with xargs's "-0" option. Otherwise the shell that xargs uses to execute the "rm" command line will treat the space as a token separator, thereby treating the name as two (or more) names. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
$ grep foo bar/*
-bash: /usr/bin/grep: /bin/sh: bad interpreter: Argument list too long
```
1

find . -name 'junkfiles-*' -print0 | xargs -0 rm

kancer · 2009-03-26 15:38:42 7
Delete more than one month old thumbnails from home directory

By time thumbnail images in ~/thumbnails take up too much space, this command will help deleting old ones. Find options explained: -type f : find files only, not directories -atime +30 : last accessed more than 30 days ago
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

find ~/.thumbnails/ -type f -atime +30 -print0 | xargs -0 rm

alperyilmaz · 2009-03-30 04:23:07 13
sync svn working copy and remote repository (auto adding new files)

Lists the local files that are not present in the remote repository (lines beginning with ?) and add them. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
$ svn status | grep '^?'
?      INFO
?      src/svn-commit.tmp
?      src/game/Game.java
?      src/game/character/Hero.java

$ svn status | grep '^?' | awk '{ print $2; }' | xargs svn add
$ svn ci

A      INFO
A      src/svn-commit.tmp
A      src/game/Game.java
A      src/game/character/Hero.java
```
1

svn status | grep '^?' | awk '{ print $2; }' | xargs svn add

unixmonkey4200 · 2009-04-10 21:55:37 10
change ownership en masse of files owned by a specific user, including files and directories with spaces

In the example, uid 0 is root. foo:foo are the user:group you want to make owner and group. '.' is the "current directory and below." -print0 and -0 indicate that filenames and directories "are terminated by a null character instead of by whitespace."
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

find . -uid 0 -print0 | xargs -0 chown foo:foo

abcde · 2009-05-27 19:52:13 6

locate a filename, make sure it exists and display it with full details

use the locate command to find files on the system and verify they exist (-e) then display each one in full details. Show Sample Output

locate -e somefile | xargs ls -l

nadavkav · 2009-08-23 13:16:59 3

Ultimate current directory usage command

A little bit smaller, faster and should handle files with special characters in the name.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

find . -maxdepth 1 ! -name '.' -execdir du -0 -s {} + | sort -znr | gawk 'BEGIN{ORS=RS="\0";} {sub($1 "\t", ""); print $0;}' | xargs -0 du -hs

ashawley · 2009-09-11 16:07:39 7
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Set your profile so that you resume or start a screen session on login

From screen's manpage: "Attach here and now. In detail this means: If a session is running, then reattach. If necessary detach and logout remotely first. If it was not running create it and notify the user. This is the author's favorite." Toss this in your ~/.bash_profile so that you never have that "oh crap" moment where you wanted to run something in screen and didn't.

Rapidly invoke an editor to write a long, complex, or tricky command

Next time you are using your shell, try typing ctrl-x e (that is holding control key press x and then e). The shell will take what you've written on the command line thus far and paste it into the editor specified by $EDITOR. Then you can edit at leisure using all the powerful macros and commands of vi, emacs, nano, or whatever.

Random unsigned integer

works at least in bash. returns integer in range 0-32767. range is not as good, but for lots of cases it's good enough.

Set a Reminder for yourself via the notification system

This will be seen through your system's visual notification system, notify-osd, notification-daemon, etc. --- sleep accepts s,m,h,d and floats (date; sleep .25m; date) --- notify-send (-t is in milliseconds && -u low / normal / critical) man notify-send for more information --- notification-daemon can use b/i/u/a HTML

Remote backups with tar over ssh

Execute it from the source host, where the source files you wish backup resides. With the minus '-' the tar command deliver the compressed output to the standar output and, trough over the ssh session to the remote host. On the other hand the backup host will be receive the stream and read it from the standar input sending it to the /path/to/backup/backupfile.tar.bz2

Rename files in batch

Run a command when a file is changed

show git commit history

Find usb device in realtime

Using this command you can track a moment when usb device was attached.

Clone IDE Hard Disk

This command clone the first partition of the primary master IDE drive to the second partition of the primary slave IDE drive (!!! back up all data before trying anything like this !!!)

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Commands tagged xargs (148)

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