I don't think the `xargs -n 4` in the middle is robust. For example, when the input contains spaces, it won't work as expected. Is there a way to make it robust?
$ printf '%s\n' {a..d} | xargs -n 4 a b c d $ printf '%s\n' 'a b' 'c d' 'e f' 'g h' | xargs -n 4 a b c d e f g h On 3/8/20, James Youngman <j...@gnu.org> wrote: > You should be able to do this by chaining use of xargs :- > > $ seq 1 208 | xargs -n 4 | xargs -d'\n' -n 5 sh -c 'set $@; > my-command $@' ignored > > The use of -n in the second xargs invocation is not needed, it's just > there to show more clearly what is happening. > -- Regards, Peng