NAME
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.