Hi Peng, if you read the man page the behaviour is defined (note the "one or more times"):
--------------------- xargs reads items from the standard input, delimited by blanks (which can be protected with double or single quotes or a backslash) or newlines, and executes the command (default is /bin/echo) one or more times with any initial- arguments followed by items read from standard input --------------------- So basically your command below will call 'ls' once with no arguments and display the contents of the current directory thanks ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Peng Yu" <pengyu...@gmail.com> > To: bug-findutils@gnu.org > Sent: Wednesday, 3 June, 2015 8:02:19 AM > Subject: Why xargs still call the command when there is no input? > > The following command will call ls. But since there is no input, > shouldn't xargs quit without doing anything? Thanks. > > xargs -0 ls </dev/null > > -- > Regards, > Peng > >
