Make xargs handle filenames that contain spaces

Question

$ ls *mp3 | xargs mplayer  

Playing Lemon.  
File not found: \'Lemon\'  
Playing Tree.mp3.  
File not found: \'Tree.mp3\'  

Exiting... (End of file)  

Answer 1

Alternative solutions can be helpful...

You can also add a null character to the end of your lines using Perl, then use the -0 option in xargs. Unlike the xargs -d '\n' (in approved answer) - this works everywhere, including OS X.

For example, to recursively list (execute, move, etc.) MPEG3 files which may contain spaces or other funny characters - I'd use:

find . | grep \.mp3 | perl -ne 'chop; print "$_\0"' | xargs -0  ls

(Note: For filtering, I prefer the easier-to-remember "| grep" syntax to "find's" --name arguments.)