APPLY

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: April 29, 1985
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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.


 

Index

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
SEE ALSO
AUTHOR
BUGS

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