xargs

Pass an array of items, and run a command per item

Let’s say you are using the backlog-md command to manage tasks within your project. You have completed tasks with ids 1.3 and 1.4, and want to archive them. To archive tasks in backlog-md, you must run the backlog task archive <id> per id you want to archive. Instead of writing multiple commands, you can use xargs and a shell array of task ids to run the commadns for you!

echo {1.3,1.4} | xargs -n 1 -I {} backlog task archive {}

• echo {1.3,1.4}: This command outputs the task IDs separated by spaces.

• xargs: This utility reads items from standard input (in this case, the task IDs).
• -n 1: This option tells xargs to use one argument per command line.
• -I {}: This option allows you to specify a placeholder {} that will be replaced by each argument from the input.
• backlog tasks archive {}: This is the command that will be executed for each task ID, with {} being replaced by the current task ID.