---
title: "atool just hangs with `xargs — zip -r test.csv` on Mac?"
description: "First off, I couldn't seem to find why the -- two dashes to xargs, but here's what I'm getting: $ atool -E -a --format=zip words.csv xargs -- zip -r words.csv [...hangs...] The docs are at..."
url: https://extraproxies.com/atool-just-hangs-with-xargs-zip-r-test-csv-on-mac
date: 2024-01-18
modified: 2024-01-18
author: "ExtraProxies"
categories: ["Proxy User"]
tags: ["atool", "hangs", "Just", "test.csv`", "`xargs"]
type: post
lang: en
---

# atool just hangs with `xargs — zip -r test.csv` on Mac?

First off, I couldn’t seem to find why the `--` two dashes to `xargs`, but here’s what I’m getting:

```
$   atool -E -a --format=zip words.csv xargs -- zip -r words.csv [...hangs...]
```

The docs are at https://linux.die.net/man/1/atool, and `-E` explains the command, so it looks like it’s just trying to invoke the `zip` command. Why isn’t it working though? I just installed with `brew install atool`:

```
==> Pouring atool--0.39.0.arm64_sonoma.bottle.2.tar.gz
```

How do I get this working? I would like to try all of the archive options for atool, not just zip, otherwise I would just use the zip command. atool looks great as a generic archiving tool, but it’s not working for me yet. I tried reordering the options, and my `words.csv` is just a quick list of words in a csv.