[bug #52137] unexpected behaviour when combining -I and -n

[Andreas Metzler]

Follow-up Comment #3, bug #52137 (project findutils):

Hello,

agreed regarding addition of warning and doc-update.

> "But I cannot see posix requiring that -I and -n must produce
> strange results, so xargs could go beyond posix and produce
> correct results in that case anyway."

Actually POSIX saying that -I and -n are mutually exclusive is not arbitrary.
The specification of -I and -n cannot be fullfilled at same time, except for
the degenerate case (one line with a single argument):

-I [...] utility is executed for each logical line from standard input. 
Arguments in the standard input shall be separated only by unescaped [newline]
characters, not by [blank] characters.
-n [...] Invoke utility using as many standard input arguments as possible, up
to number arguments maximum.

Therefore because POSIX requires this behavior ...

address@hidden:/tmp$ echo a b | xargs -n1 echo x
x a
x b
address@hidden:/tmp$ echo a b | xargs -I {}  echo x {}
x a b


... mixing -L and -n *must* produce strange results (or an error).


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