Unix - "xargs" - output "in the middle" (not at the end!)

Question

Hello, example use of "xargs" application in Unix can be something like this:

ls | xargs echo

which is the same as (let's say I have "someFile" and "someDir/" in the working dir):

echo someFile someDir

so "xargs" take its "input" and place it "at the end" of the next command (here at the end of echo).

But sometimes I want xargs to place its input somewhere "in the middle" of next command. For example:

find . -type f -name "*.cpp" -print | xargs g++ -o outputFile

so if I had in the current directory files "a.cpp" "b.cpp" "c.cpp" the output would be the same as with the command:

g++ -o outputFile a.cpp b.cpp c.cpp

but I want to have something like this:

g++ a.cpp b.cpp c.cpp -o outputFile

Is there a way to do it?

P.S.: I need it in some cases, because e.g.:

i586-mingw32msvc-g++ -o outputFile `pkg-config --cflags --libs gtkmm-2.4` a.cpp b.cpp c.cpp

doesn't work but this one works fine:

i586-mingw32msvc-g++ a.cpp b.cpp c.cpp -o outputFile `pkg-config --cflags --libs gtkmm-2.4`

Thanks.

Petike

Answer 1

If your version of xargs doesn't include the -I feature, an alternative is to write a little shell script containing the command you want to execute:

#!/bin/sh
exec i586-mingw32msvc-g++ "$@" -o outputFile...

Then use xargs to run that:

find . -type f -name "*.cpp" -print | xargs my_gcc_script

Answer 2

You do not need xargs for this. Just use:

g++ `find . -type f -name '*.cpp'` -o outputFile

Answer 3

GNU Parallel http://www.gnu.org/software/parallel/ would be a solution too:

find . -type f -name "*.cpp" -print | parallel -X g++ {} -o outputFile