xargs

to construct arguments from input and invoke other utility

Reference

http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-unix-bsd-xargs-construct-argument-lists-utility/

Simple one argument

$ echo 1 2 3 4 | xargs echo

Specify number of arguments per command line

$ echo 1 2 3 4 | xargs -n 2

Specify position (placeholder) of argument

$ find . -name "*.bak" -print0 | xargs -0 -I {} mv {} ~/old.files

• find -print0 insert a null character as a separator
• xargs -0 items are terminated by a null character instead of white-space, and quotes and backslash are not special (every character taken literally)
• -d delimiter - use delimiter (can be \n) and take input characters literally
• -I replace-str - replace replace-str

Multiple commands

cat a.txt | xargs -I % sh -c 'command1; command2; ...'

Or

< a.txt xargs -I % sh -c 'command1; command2; ...'

But maybe it's better to use while read