xargs split incoming line

Question

I have a file with two columns separated by spaces like this:

potato 5
apple 7
pretzel 9

I want to issue a command on each line like this:

cmd -f potato -n 5
cmd -f apple -n 7
cmd -f pretzel -n 9

Can I get xargs to split the incoming line and pass those arguments to a command? Is xargs even the right command to use here?

sputnick · Answer 1 · 2012-03-16 01:30:59Z

I don't think you can do that directly with xargs, but there's another solution :

$ cat /tmp/l
potato 5
apple 7
pretzel 9

using printf:

$ printf 'cmd -f %s -n %s\n' $(</tmp/l)
cmd -f potato -n 5
cmd -f apple -n 7
cmd -f pretzel -n 9

if you need to execute it, you can use another pipe to the shell, like

$ printf 'cmd -f %s -n %s\n' $(</tmp/l) | bash

Another simple & pure awk solution :

$ awk '{print "cmd -f "$1" -n "$2}' /tmp/l
cmd -f potato -n 5
cmd -f apple -n 7
cmd -f pretzel -n 9

Finally :

$ awk '{system("cmd -f "$1" -n "$2)}' /tmp/l

Ole Tange · Answer 2 · 2012-03-16 22:54:28Z

If you have GNU Parallel http://www.gnu.org/software/parallel/ installed you can do this:

cat food.txt | parallel --colsep ' ' cmd -f {1} -n {2}

It will also run one cmd per cpu core in parallel.

You can install GNU Parallel simply by:

wget http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/parallel.git/plain/src/parallel
chmod 755 parallel
cp parallel sem

2 Answers