APPLY(1) BSD General Commands Manual APPLY(1)

NAME
     aappppllyy - apply a command to a set of arguments

SYNOPSIS
     aappppllyy [-aa c] [-dd] [-##] command argument ...

DESCRIPTION
     The aappppllyy utility runs the named command on each argument 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 execu-
     tion of command.

     The options are as follows:

     -##      Normally arguments are taken singly; the optional number -## spec-
             ifies 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.

     -aa c    The use of the character `%' as a magic character may be changed
             with the -aa option.

     -dd      Display the commands that would have been executed, but do not
             actually execute them.

ENVIRONMENT     The following environment variable affects the execution of aappppllyy:

     SHELL  Pathname of shell to use.  If this variable is not defined, the
            Bourne shell is used.

EEXXAAMMPPLLEESS
     apply echo a*
            is similar to ls(1);
     apply -2 cmp a1 b1 a2 b2 a3 b3
            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.

FILES     /bin/sh  default shell

AUTHORS     Rob Pike

BUGS
     Shell metacharacters in command may have bizarre effects; it is best to
     enclose complicated commands in single quotes ('').

HISTORY     The aappppllyy command appeared in 4.2BSD.

BSD                              April 4, 1994                             BSD