Manual page for APPLY(1)
apply - apply a command to a set of arguments
SYNOPSIS
apply
[
-ac
] [
-n
] command args ...
DESCRIPTION
Apply
runs the named
command
on each
argument
arg
in turn.
Normally arguments are chosen singly; the optional number
n
specifies the number of arguments to be passed to
command.
If
n
is zero,
command
is run without arguments once for each
arg.
Character sequences of the form %d
in
command,
where
d
is a digit from 1 to 9,
are replaced by the
d'th following unused
arg.
If any such sequences occur,
n
is ignored,
and the number of arguments passed to
command
is the maximum value of
d
in
command.
The character `%' may be changed by the
-a
option.
Examples:
-
apply echo *
is similar to ls(1);
-
apply -2 cmp a1 b1 a2 b2 ...
compares the `a' files to the `b' files;
-
apply -0 who 1 2 3 4 5
runs who(1) 5 times; and
-
apply 'ln %1 /usr/joe' *
links all files in the current directory to the directory /usr/joe.
SEE ALSO
sh(1)
AUTHOR
Rob Pike
BUGS
Shell metacharacters in
command
may have bizarre effects; it is best to enclose complicated
commands in single quotes ' '.
There is no way to pass a literal `%2' if `%' is the
argument expansion character.
Created by unroff & hp-tools.
© somebody (See intro for details). All Rights Reserved.
Last modified 11/5/97
