Some system-level values are output with a null byte (the bytes value is 00) and might need to read those values seperately. This Null byte delimitation can be worked around using xargs and its -0 argument.
For Example:
# When you run ps aux. You see all of the processes and their attributes. $ ps aux ...skip... root 31413 99.4 16.4 699836 690828 ? R 01:31 62:39 xz -9 /root/backup/full_infotinks_backup-20220814_013002.tar ...skip... # Note the PID we are interested in is 31413 # Now you can also get this information from /proc/PID/cmd $ cat /proc/31413/cmdline xz-9/root/backup/full_infotinks_backup-20220814_013002.tar # The output can be read by a person, but if you need to code with that, its hard to tell where one argument begins and another ends. # So here is a trick to do it with xargs. It has a split by 0 byte option if you use -0 that is very helpful $ cat /proc/31413/cmdline | xargs -0 echo xz -9 /root/backup/full_infotinks_backup-20220814_013002.tar # now we see each of the arguments space seperated # so we split by the 0 byte and output to a single echo # you might be familiar with find -print0 | xargs -0 <something> # what if some of the arguments were also space seperated? # well then you can seperate the arguments with a new line $ cat /proc/31413/cmdline | xargs -0 -I % echo % xz -9 /root/backup/full_infotinks_backup-20220814_013002.tar # So now we know the first argument is xz, the second is -9, and the third is the path # This works the same as before, xargs splits on the 0 byte, but then it takes each variable and called it %, and pumps each to a seperate echo statement # so its like echo <arg1>; echo <arg2>; ... so on until its done
To summarize the trick is
# to space seperate your 0 bytes delimited items CommandWhichHasNullBytes | xargs -0 echo # to newline seperate your 0 byte delimited items CommandWhichHasNullBytes | xargs -0 -I% echo %