Note:
# cat /tmp/foo - regular file
/lib/a.lib
/lib/b.lib
/lib/c.lib
/lib/d.lib
cat /tmp/foo | xargs cp /tmp/fred
cp: target /lib/d.lib is not a directory
Answer
xargs normally places its substituted args last. You could just do:
$ cp `cat /tmp/foo` /tmp/fred/.
If it's really just the lib files, then cp /lib/?.lib /tmp/fred/. would naturally work.
And to really do it with xargs, here is an example of putting the arg first:
0:~$ (echo word1; echo word2) | xargs -I here echo here how now
word1 how now
word2 how now
0:~$