Sometimes I have commands that are designed only to process a single
input argument but I want to call them repeatedly on a list.

For example I generate a command line pipe that outputs a list of ip
addresses:

cmd1 | cmd2 | tr '\n' '\t'

11.0.0.21 11.0.0.176 11.0.0.191

To convert to hex I have ip2hex that accepts only 1 arg. ip2hex: ip2hex
<ip address>

Is there a command line metaphor to feed a command one arg at a time
repeatedly. I guess I could use a for loop but that's somewhat unweildly
on the command line.

--
Rahul

* Rahul <nospam@nospam.invalid>:
> Sometimes I have commands that are designed only to process a single
> input argument but I want to call them repeatedly on a list.
>
> For example I generate a command line pipe that outputs a list of ip
> addresses:
>
> cmd1 | cmd2 | tr '\n' '\t'
>
> 11.0.0.21 11.0.0.176 11.0.0.191
>
> To convert to hex I have ip2hex that accepts only 1 arg. ip2hex: ip2hex
><ip address>
>
> Is there a command line metaphor to feed a command one arg at a time
> repeatedly. I guess I could use a for loop but that's somewhat unweildly
> on the command line.

xargs

For example:

cmd1 | cmd2 | xargs -n1 ip2hex

--
James Michael Fultz <xyzzy@sent.as.invalid>
Remove this part when replying ^^^^^^^^

> xargs
> For example:
> cmd1 | cmd2 | xargs -n1 ip2hex

Looks like I re-wrote a simpler version of xargs a month ago . . .
learn something new everyday. Thanks for pointing out xargs.

Chieh
--
http://www.cynosurex.com/