specify a multiple of m arguments in xargs

[Peng Yu]

Hi,

xargs by default does not put a multiple of m arguments (m is an
integer greater than 1) to the command line. But is there a way that I
can make sure only a multiple of m arguments are put the command line.

For example, for something like the following command, I'd like to
make sure everytime there are 5 m arguments given to printf. But I
don't think xargs can guarantee so by default in the output of the
example.

$ seq 1000000 | xargs printf '%s\t%s\t%s\t%s\t%s\n' > /tmp/1.txt
$ < /tmp/1.txt awk -v FS='\t' -e '!($1 && $2 && $3 && $4 && $5)'  | wc -l
105

-- 
Regards,
Peng