Using substitution for xargs scripting can cause an
out of bounds string copy, which in turn causes a core.

Eg,

echo 123 | xargs -i touch --reference={}.body {}.shtml

file core
core: ELF 32-bit LSB core file of 'xargs' (signal 11), Intel
80386, version 1

Solution:

A patch to the do_insert function.

ftp://pc24.sr.bham.ac.uk/pub/packages/SOURCES/findutils-4.1-xargs-overflow.patch

--- findutils-4.1/xargs/xargs.c.orig    Mon Feb 22 16:18:15
1999
+++ findutils-4.1/xargs/xargs.c Mon Feb 22 16:18:48 1999
@@ -625,4 +625,5 @@
       p += len;
       arg += len;
+      arglen -= len;

       if (s)
@@ -633,4 +634,5 @@
          strcpy (p, linebuf);
          arg += rplen;
+          arglen -= rplen;
          p += lblen;
        }

Regards,

Mark Cooke