How does `xargs -n` work?

The xargs -n option is used to specify the maximum number of arguments that xargs will pass to the command it executes. Here's how it works:

xargs -n <number> <command>

<number>: This is the maximum number of arguments that will be passed to the command for each execution.
<command>: This is the command that xargs will execute with the specified number of arguments.

Suppose you have a file books.txt containing the following book titles:

Moby_Dick
War_and_Peace
Ulysses
Don_Quixote

You can use xargs -n to process these titles in batches. For example, to echo two book titles at a time, you would run:

cat books.txt | xargs -n 2 echo

This command would produce the following output:

Moby_Dick War_and_Peace
Ulysses Don_Quixote

xargs -n allows you to control how many arguments are passed to the command in each execution.
It is useful for processing large lists of items in manageable batches, improving efficiency and organization in command execution.