mjhjmtu

I have a file that contains file names. For example:

/tmp/list.txt (it is with the spaces at the start of each line):

 /tmp/file.log
 /app/nir/home.txt
 /etc/config.cust

I want, using one line, to move all the files listed in /tmp/list.txt to /app/dest

So it should be something like this:

cat /tmp/list.txt | xargs mv /app/dest/

You are just missing the -t option for mv (assuming GNU mv):

cat /tmp/list.txt | xargs mv -t /app/dest/

or shorter (inspired by X Tian's answer):

xargs mv -t /app/dest/ < /tmp/list.txt

the leading (and possible trailing) spaces are removed. Spaces within the filenames will lead to problems.

If you have spaces or tabs or quotes or backslashes in the filenames, assuming GNU xargs you can use:

sed 's/^ *//' < /tmp/list.txt | xargs -d 'n' mv -t /app/dest/

Assuming your file names are relatively sane (no newlines or weird characters):

while read file; do mv "$file" /app/dest/; done < list.txt 

To deal with weird file names (breaks if a file name has a newline):

while IFS= read -r file; do mv "$file" /app/dest/; done < list.txt 

for i in $(cat /tmp/list.txt); do mv "$i" /app/dest/; done

Pure xargs reading directly from file

xargs -l -i < flist mv -v /app/dst

edit 1 -- after @Anthon 's comment below,

xargs -I < flist mv -v /app/dst

mv `cat /tmp/list.txt` /app/dest/

(spaces at start are ignored)