xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/apply/apply.1 (revision 2e3f49888ec8851bafb22011533217487764fdb0)
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28.Dd January 28, 2022
29.Dt APPLY 1
30.Os
31.Sh NAME
32.Nm apply
33.Nd apply a command to a set of arguments
34.Sh SYNOPSIS
35.Nm
36.Op Fl a Ar c
37.Op Fl d
38.Op Cm - Ns Ar #
39.Ar command argument ...
40.Sh DESCRIPTION
41The
42.Nm
43utility runs the named
44.Ar command
45on each
46argument
47.Ar argument
48in turn.
49.Pp
50Character sequences of the form
51.Dq Li \&%d
52in
53.Ar command ,
54where
55.Sq Li d
56is a digit from 1 to 9, are replaced by the
57.Li d Ns \'th
58following unused
59.Ar argument .
60In this case, the largest digit number of arguments are discarded for
61each execution of
62.Ar command .
63.Pp
64The options are as follows:
65.Bl -tag -width indent
66.It Cm - Ns Ar #
67Normally arguments are taken singly; the optional number
68.Ar #
69specifies the number of arguments to be passed to
70.Ar command .
71If the number is zero,
72.Ar command
73is run, without arguments, once for each
74.Ar argument .
75.Pp
76If any sequences of
77.Dq Li \&%d
78occur in
79.Ar command ,
80the
81.Fl #
82option is ignored.
83.It Fl a Ar c
84The use of the character
85.Sq Li %
86as a magic character may be changed with the
87.Fl a
88option.
89.It Fl d
90Display the commands that would have been executed, but do not actually
91execute them.
92.El
93.Sh ENVIRONMENT
94The following environment variable affects the execution of
95.Nm :
96.Bl -tag -width SHELL
97.It Ev SHELL
98Pathname of shell to use.
99If this variable is not defined, the Bourne shell is used.
100.El
101.Sh FILES
102.Bl -tag -width /bin/sh -compact
103.It Pa /bin/sh
104default shell
105.El
106.Sh EXAMPLES
107.Bl -tag -width apply -compact
108.It Li "apply echo *"
109is similar to
110.Xr ls 1 ;
111.It Li "apply \-2 cmp a1 b1 a2 b2 a3 b3"
112compares the `a' files to the `b' files;
113.It Li "apply \-0 who 1 2 3 4 5"
114runs
115.Xr who 1
1165 times; and
117.It Li "apply \'ln %1 /usr/joe\'" *
118links all files in the current directory to the directory
119.Pa /usr/joe .
120.El
121.Sh HISTORY
122The
123.Nm
124command appeared in
125.Bx 4.2 .
126.Sh AUTHORS
127.An Rob Pike
128.Sh BUGS
129Shell metacharacters in
130.Ar command
131may have bizarre effects; it is best to enclose complicated
132commands in single quotes
133.Pq '' .
134.Pp
135The
136.Nm
137utility does not recognize multibyte characters.
138