redirect - Using file contents as command line arguments in BASH

Question

I'd like to know how to use the contents of a file as command line arguments, but am struggling with syntax.

Say I've got the following:

# cat > arglist
src/file1 dst/file1
src/file2 dst/file2
src/file3 dst/file3

How can I use the contents of each line in the arglist file as arguments to say, a cp command?

Answer 1

the '-n' option for xargs specifies how many arguments to use per command :

$ xargs -n2 < arglist echo cp

cp src/file1 dst/file1
cp src/file2 dst/file2
cp src/file3 dst/file3