$home/manuals/unix_v8/1/apply

APPLY(1)                    General Commands Manual                   APPLY(1)



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 a time-consuming way to do `ls -1'

       apply -2 cmp a1 b1 a2 b2 ...
              compares the `a' files to the `b' files

       apply -0 date `seq 20`
              runs date 20 times; like `for i in `seq 20`; do date; done'

SEE ALSO
       sh(1)

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.



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