xargs with multiple arguments

Question

I have a source input, input.txt

a.txt
b.txt
c.txt

I want to feed these input into a program as the following:

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Answer 1

Actually, it's relatively easy:

... | sed 's/^/--prefix=/g' | xargs echo | xargs -I PARAMS your_cmd PARAMS

The sed 's/^/--prefix=/g' is optional, in case you need to prefix each param with some --prefix=.

The xargs echo turns the list of param lines (one param in each line) into a list of params in a single line and the xargs -I PARAMS your_cmd PARAMS allows you to run a command, placing the params where ever you want.

So cat input.txt | sed 's/^/--file=/g' | xargs echo | xargs -I PARAMS my-program PARAMS does what you need (assuming all lines within input.txt are simple and qualify as a single param value each).