using a user defined bash function in xargs

Question

I have this self-defined function in my .bashrc :

function ord() {
  printf '%d' "'$1"
}

How do I get this function to be used with xargs ?:

cat anyFile.txt | awk '{split($0,a,""); for (i=1; i<=100; i++) print a[i]}' | xargs -i ord {}
xargs: ord: No such file or directory

Maybe for the UUOC? I am not the downvoter – jordanm Jun 27 '12 at 18:55 — jordanm, Jun 27 '12 at 18:55

score 8 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 20 '13 at 11:07

8

First, your function only uses 1 argument, so using xargs here will only take the first arg. You need to change the function to the following:

ord() {
   printf '%d' "$@"
}

To get xargs to use a function from your bashrc, you must spawn a new interactive shell. Something like this may work:

awk '{split($0,a,""); for (i=1; i<=100; i++) print a[i]}' anyFile.txt | xargs bash -i -c 'ord $@' _

Since you are already depending on word splitting, you could just store awk's output in an array.

arr=(awk '{split($0,a,""); for (i=1; i<=100; i++) print a[i]}' anyFile.txt)
ord "${arr[@]}"

Or, you can use awk's printf:

awk '{split($0,a,""); for (i=1; i<=100; i++) printf("%d",a[i])}' anyFile.txt

edited Dec 20 '13 at 11:07

Suvarna Pattayil

answered Jun 27 '12 at 19:05

jordanm

For the all awk solution it doesn't convert correctly. Numbers are printed as their digits, while letters are converted to '0'. I'm looking to convert ASCII values to integers. – lonestar21 Jun 27 '12 at 19:20
2

Or you can export the function (`export -f`) and *not* make the shell interactive. – Dennis Williamson Jun 27 '12 at 22:01

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 27 '12 at 22:05

0

In the trivial case, you can use /usr/bin/printf:

xargs -I {} /usr/bin/printf '%d' "'{}"

answered Jun 27 '12 at 22:05

Dennis Williamson

2 Answers2