A small primer on xargs
In a nutshell, xargs is an alternative to fully expanded shell for loops. Given the right options, xargs can be made to exhibit for-loop-like behavior. But out of the box, it is a way to pipe a bunch of arguments to a single command in one fell swoop.In A small primer on xargs you will find a deep explanation on xargs usage. The article teach me a bunch of tricks I am not aware of (and I know Unix from '93....yes, 1993...).This can save a great deal of compute time if you are piping a long list of arguments to a command rather than iterating over them one at a time.
Keep an eye to it!