xargs

xargs (short for "extended arguments" ) is a command on Unix and most Unix-like operating systems used to build and execute commands from standard input. It converts input from standard input into arguments to a command.

Some commands such as grep and awk can take input either as command-line arguments or from the standard input. However, others such as cp and echo can only take input as arguments, which is why xargs is necessary.

A port of an older version of GNU xargs is available for Microsoft Windows as part of the UnxUtils collection of native Win32 ports of common GNU Unix-like utilities. A ground-up rewrite named wargs is part of the open-source TextTools project. The xargs command has also been ported to the IBM i operating system.