xargs with multiple commands and max-args

Don't use {} as part of the sh -c script text (the issue is similar to the one described in the accepted answer to Is it possible to use `find -exec sh -c` safely?).

Instead:

printf '%s\n' file* | xargs -n 3 sh -c './code output.txt "$@"; command2; command3' sh

This would work as long as no filename contains newlines. If your xargs has the non-standard -0 option (most common implementation have), the following would also work for filenames with newlines:

printf '%s\0' file* | xargs -0 -n 3 sh -c './code output.txt "$@"; command2; command3' sh

The "$@" (the quotes are important) will be expanded to the list of the positional parameters inside the sh -c script. These are the filenames given to the script by xargs. The seemingly useless sh at the very end will be put into $0 in the sh -c script and used in any error messages that that shell produces (it is not part of "$@").

In the zsh shell (but not in e.g. bash or sh), you could instead do

for name1 name2 name3 in file*; do
    ./code output.txt $name1 $name2 $name3
    command2
    command3
done

Related:

• Why *not* parse `ls` (and what to do instead)?