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When using xargs it will not work with special characters like apostrophe in file names.
To get around this limitation use the find command's -print0 option in combination with -0 which handles special characters white space, quote marks, backslashes, blanks and/or newlines,
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find . -print0 | xargs -0 -I{} echo {} |
Note using Using xarg's -0 does not work with large data sets. Keep in mind that "The GNU find -print0 option produces input suitable for this mode." it probably is because it is meant to be used together.ls" produces slightly different output from "find .".
Here is an example,
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# Data I am working with
ls
11 My Baby's Got To Pay the Rent 1.m4a 6 Habits (Stay High) [Hippie Sabotage Remix] 1.txt
11 My Baby's Got To Pay the Rent 1.txt Tin's file.txt
11 Summertime Sadness 1.m4a hello
11 The Troubles 1.m4a pwd
12 Canoeing (Katie and Alex's Theme) 1.m4a test123
# Apostrophe kills xargs here
xargs: unterminated quote
# -0 by itself does not solve the problem
ls | xargs -0 -I{} echo {}
{}
# Now it works.
find . -print0 | xargs -0 -I{} echo {}
.
./11 My Baby's Got To Pay the Rent 1.m4a
./11 My Baby's Got To Pay the Rent 1.txt
./11 Summertime Sadness 1.m4a
./11 The Troubles 1.m4a
./12 Canoeing (Katie and Alex's Theme) 1.m4a
./6 Habits (Stay High) [Hippie Sabotage Remix] 1.txt
./hello
./pwd
./test123
./Tin's file.txt
# Remove a file to show -0 works with smaller data set,
rm test123
# -0 by itself now work, but making any file names longer or adding back test123 breaks it
ls | xargs -0 -I{} echo {}
{}
Kitchen-iMac:tmp tin.pham$ ls | xargs -0 -I{} echo {}
11 My Baby's Got To Pay the Rent 1.m4a
11 My Baby's Got To Pay the Rent 1.txt
11 Summertime Sadness 1.m4a
11 The Troubles 1.m4a
12 Canoeing (Katie and Alex's Theme) 1.m4a
6 Habits (Stay High) [Hippie Sabotage Remix] 1.txt
Tin's file.txt
hello
pwd
# Show's that find looks different than ls and you want to keep that in mind,
.
./11 My Baby's Got To Pay the Rent 1.m4a
./11 My Baby's Got To Pay the Rent 1.txt
./11 Summertime Sadness 1.m4a
./11 The Troubles 1.m4a
./12 Canoeing (Katie and Alex's Theme) 1.m4a
./6 Habits (Stay High) [Hippie Sabotage Remix] 1.txt
./hello
./pwd
./Tin's file.txt
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Useful Applications of xargs
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