Make xargs execute the command once for each line of input

Question

How can I make xargs execute the command exactly once for each line of input given? It\'s default behavior is to chunk the lines and execute the command once, passing multip

Answer 1

@Draemon answers seems to be right with "-0" even with space in the file.

I was trying the xargs command and I found that "-0" works perfectly with "-L". even the spaces are treated (if input was null terminated ). the following is an example :

#touch "file with space"
#touch "file1"
#touch "file2"

The following will split the nulls and execute the command on each argument in the list :

 #find . -name 'file*' -print0 | xargs -0 -L1
./file with space
./file1
./file2

so -L1 will execute the argument on each null terminated character if used with "-0". To see the difference try :

 #find . -name 'file*' -print0 | xargs -0 | xargs -L1
 ./file with space ./file1 ./file2

even this will execute once :

 #find . -name 'file*' -print0  | xargs -0  | xargs -0 -L1
./file with space ./file1 ./file2

The command will execute once as the "-L" now doesn't split on null byte. you need to provide both "-0" and "-L" to work.