Two arguments in a command with xargs and bash -c

You can use substitution -I{} to put the argument into the middle of the command.

> echo "a\nb\nc\nd" | xargs -I{} echo {}!
a!
b!
c!
d!

I can use -L2 to provide exactly 2 arguments to the command:

> echo "a\nb\nc\nd" | xargs -I{} -L2 echo {}!
a b!
c d!

But I want to use two arguments, the first in one place, the next in another place:

> echo "a\nb\nc\nd" | xargs -I{} -L2 echo {}x{}!
a bxa b!
c dxa b!

I wanted axb! but got a bxa b!. In order to achieve this you have to pass arguments to a bash command.

> echo "a\nb\nc\nd" | xargs -L2 bash -c 'echo $0x$1!'
axb!
cxd!

Just like calling

bash -c 'echo $0x$1!' a b

Where $0 represents the first argument and $1 represents the second argument.

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