On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 6:38 PM, Lars Thon <lars.t...@gmail.com> wrote: > xargs wishlist item: > > a method for accessing an xargs running argument count so that the > count can be used in the command to be executed by xargs: > > For example, the syntax could be as follows: > > ls * | xargs --counter=^ --replace=_ "echo argument number ^ is _" > > The counter should perhaps be 0-based, or 1-based, or N-based (programmable > initial value).
But if that's what you want to do, why use xargs at all? $ ( set -- $(echo *); count=0; for arg; do echo "Argument ${count} is ${arg}"; (( ++count )); done ) Argument 0 is build-aux Argument 1 is config.cache Argument 2 is config.h Argument 3 is config.log Argument 4 is config.status Argument 5 is doc Argument 6 is find Argument 7 is gl Argument 8 is GNUmakefile Argument 9 is lib Argument 10 is locate Argument 11 is m4 Argument 12 is Makefile Argument 13 is po Argument 14 is stamp-h1 Argument 15 is tests Argument 16 is xargs $ awk 'BEGIN {for (i=1; i<ARGC; ++i) { printf("Argument %d is %s\n", i, ARGV[i]); }; exit(0); }' * Argument 1 is build-aux Argument 2 is config.cache Argument 3 is config.h Argument 4 is config.log Argument 5 is config.status Argument 6 is doc Argument 7 is find Argument 8 is gl Argument 9 is GNUmakefile Argument 10 is lib Argument 11 is locate Argument 12 is m4 Argument 13 is Makefile Argument 14 is po Argument 15 is stamp-h1 Argument 16 is tests Argument 17 is xargs