Using output of awk to run command

Question

I am brand new to shell scripting and cannot seem to figure out this seemingly simple task. I have a text file (ciphers.txt) with about 250 lines, and I would like to use the fi

Answer 1

The xargs command is specifically for that use case.

awk '{print $0}' >results.txt

This version is a bit longer for the example case because awk was already being used to parse out $0. However, xargs comes in handy when you already have a list of things to use and are not running something that can execute a subshell. For example, awk could be used below to execute the mv but xargs is a lot simpler.

ls -1 *.txt | xargs -I{} mv "{}" "{}.$(date '+%y%m%d')"

The above command renames each text file in the current directory to a date-stamped backup. The equivalent in awk requires making a variable out of the results of the date command, passing that into awk, and then constructing and executing the command.

The xargs command can also accumulate multiple parameters onto a single line which is helpful if the input has multiple columns, or when a single record is split into recurring groups in the input file.

For more on all the ways to use it, have a look at "xargs" All-IN-One Tutorial Guide over at UNIX Mantra.