APPLY(1) - General Commands Manual #
APPLY(1) - General Commands Manual
NAME #
apply - apply a command to a set of arguments
SYNOPSIS #
apply [-#] [-d] [-a magic] command argument …
DESCRIPTION #
apply runs the named command on each given argument in turn.
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
argument.
In this case, the largest digit number of arguments are discarded for
each execution of
command.
The options are as follows:
-#
Normally arguments are taken singly; the optional number -# specifies the number of arguments to be passed to command. If the number is zero, command is run, without arguments, once for each argument.
If any sequences of “
%d” occur in command, the -# option is ignored.
-a magic
Use magic as the magic character instead of the default ‘
%’.
-d
Debug mode.
Print commands to the standard output but do not actually execute them.
ENVIRONMENT #
SHELL
Pathname of shell to use.
If this variable is not defined, the Bourne shell is used.
FILES #
/bin/sh
default shell
EXAMPLES #
Operate similar to ls(1):
$ apply echo *
Compare the a* files to the b* files:
$ apply -2 cmp a1 b1 a2 b2 a3 b3
Run who(1) five times:
$ apply -0 who 1 2 3 4 5
Link all files in the current directory to the directory /home/joe:
$ apply ’ln %1 /home/joe’ *
SEE ALSO #
HISTORY #
The apply command appeared in 4.2BSD.
AUTHORS #
Rob Pike
BUGS #
Shell metacharacters in command may have bizarre effects; it is best to enclose complicated commands in single quotes (’’).
OpenBSD 7.5 - September 8, 2014