xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/apply/apply.1 (revision 17ee9d00bc1ae1e598c38f25826f861e4bc6c3ce)
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32.\"     @(#)apply.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 4/4/94
33.\"
34.Dd April 4, 1994
35.Dt APPLY 1
36.Os BSD 4.2
37.Sh NAME
38.Nm apply
39.Nd apply a command to a set of arguments
40.Sh SYNOPSIS
41.Nm apply
42.Op Fl a Ns Ar c
43.Op Fl Ns Ar #
44.Ar command argument ...
45.Sh DESCRIPTION
46.Nm Apply
47runs the named
48.Ar command
49on each
50argument
51.Ar argument
52in turn.
53.Pp
54Character sequences of the form
55.Dq Li \&%d
56in
57.Ar command ,
58where
59.Dq Li d
60is a digit from 1 to 9, are replaced by the
61.Li d Ns \'th
62following unused
63.Ar argument .
64In this case, the largest digit number of arguments are discarded for
65each execution of
66.Ar command .
67.Pp
68The options are as follows:
69.Bl -tag -width "-ac"
70.It Fl Ns Ar #
71Normally arguments are taken singly; the optional number
72.Fl #
73specifies the number of arguments to be passed to
74.Ar command .
75If the number is zero,
76.Ar command
77is run, without arguments, once for each
78.Ar argument .
79.Pp
80If any sequences of
81.Dq Li \&%d
82occur in command, the
83.Fl n
84option is ignored.
85.It Fl a Ns Ar c
86The use of the character
87.Dq Li %
88as a magic character may be changed with the
89.Fl a
90option.
91.El
92.Sh ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
93The following environment variable affects the execution of
94.Nm apply :
95.Bl -tag -width SHELL
96.It Ev SHELL
97Pathname of shell to use.
98If this variable is not defined, the Bourne shell is used.
99.El
100.Sh EXAMPLES
101.Bl -tag -width apply -compact
102.It Li "apply echo a*"
103is similar to ls(1);
104.It Li "apply \-2 cmp a1 b1 a2 b2 a3 b3"
105compares the `a' files to the `b' files;
106.It Li "apply \-0 who 1 2 3 4 5"
107runs who(1) 5 times; and
108.It Li "apply \'ln %1 /usr/joe\'" *
109links all files in the current directory to the directory
110.Pa /usr/joe .
111.El
112.Sh Files
113.Bl -tag -width /bin/sh -compact
114.It Pa /bin/sh
115Default shell
116.El
117.Sh AUTHOR
118Rob Pike
119.Sh BUGS
120Shell metacharacters in
121.Ar command
122may have bizarre effects; it is best to enclose complicated
123commands in single quotes
124.Pq Sq .
125.Sh HISTORY
126The
127.Nm
128command appeared in
129.Bx 4.2 .
130