title: Splitting command line args with GNU parallel
body: <p>Using <code>GNU parallel</code>: <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/parallel/" rel="noreferrer">http://www.gnu.org/software/parallel/</a></p>
  
  <p>I have a program that takes two arguments, e.g.</p>
  
  <pre><code>$ ./prog file1 file2
  $ ./prog file2 file3
  ...
  $ ./prog file23456 file23457
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I'm using a script that generates the file name pairs, however this poses a problem because the result of the script is a single string - not a pair. like:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$ ./prog "file1 file2"
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><code>GNU parallel</code> seems to have a slew of tricks up its sleeves, I wonder if there's one for splitting text around separators:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$ generate_file_pairs | parallel ./prog ?  
    # where ? is text under consideration, like "file1 file2"
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The easy work around is to split the args manually in prog, but I'd like to know if it's possible in <code>GNU parallel</code>.</p>