echo dat1 dat2 dat3 | tr " " "n" | xargs -I {} -p ln -s {}

echo
tr
xargs

$ echo 'echo dat1 dat2 dat3 | tr " " "n" | xargs -I {} -p ln -s {}'
echo dat1 dat2 dat3 | tr " " "n" | xargs -I {} -p ln -s {}

$ echo 'echo dat1 dat2 dat3 | tr " " "n" | xargs -I {} -p ln -s {}'  | awk '{print $1}' RS='|'
echo
tr
xargs