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In this link: https://superuser.com/a/180252/401901
The following command is used:
cat list.txt | xargs -I % echo cp % new_folder
What does the % % usage mean?
All google search results are about using it in a modulo operation. Or, am I searching it in a wrong way?
Also, is there a name for this kind of usage?
Thank you!
sravi
Posted 2018-10-11T22:53:57.763
Reputation: 1
1
From man xargs:
-I replace-str Replace occurrences of replace-str in the initial-arguments with names read from standard input. Also, unquoted blanks do not terminate input items; in‐ stead the separator is the newline character. Implies -x and -L 1.
So it sets up % to be the part of the command which is replaced by the list of files.
l0b0
Posted 2018-10-11T22:53:57.763
Reputation: 6 306
Yep. This %-sign isn't some kind of shell operator, it's just being used by xargs as a placeholder string so xargs knows where to insert the strings that are being piped in via stdin. When I use xargs, I usually use "HERE" as my string for -I or -J, which makes it more clear that it's just a string to tell xargs to "insert the input right HERE in this command line". – Spiff – 2018-10-12T01:04:59.590