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The xargs program reads its standard input, and for each line of input runs the cat program with the input lines as argument(s).

If you really want to do this in a loop, you can:

for fn in `cat filenames.txt`; do
    echo "the next file is $fn"
    cat $fn
"foreach" is not the name for bash.  It is simply "for".  You can do things in one line only like:
for fn in `cat filenames.txt`; do cat "$fn"; done
Reference: http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-unix-bash-for-loop-one-line-command/
                Unlike most other answers here, this one actually works, even when file names contain spaces.
– mivk
                Nov 9, 2018 at 9:53
You'll probably want to handle spaces in your file names, abhorrent though they are :-)
So I would opt initially for something like:
pax> cat qq.in
normalfile.txt
file with spaces.doc
pax> sed 's/ /\\ /g' qq.in | xargs -n 1 cat
<<contents of 'normalfile.txt'>>
<<contents of 'file with spaces.doc'>>
pax> _
If they all have the same extension (for example .jpg), you can use this:
for picture in  *.jpg ; do
    echo "the next file is $picture"
(This solution also works if the filename has spaces)
                I think there are situations in which it is useful to surround *.jpg with quotes, IIRC: for picture in "*.jpg";...
– Tom Russell
                Mar 13, 2021 at 5:20
        
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