xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/apply/apply.1 (revision 3d1a01487ac99da152f985897c3ddb9eee30ce63)
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32.\"     @(#)apply.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 4/4/94
33.\" $FreeBSD$
34.\"
35.Dd July 17, 2004
36.Dt APPLY 1
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm apply
40.Nd apply a command to a set of arguments
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.Nm
43.Op Fl a Ar c
44.Op Fl d
45.Op Fl #
46.Ar command argument ...
47.Sh DESCRIPTION
48The
49.Nm
50utility runs the named
51.Ar command
52on each
53argument
54.Ar argument
55in turn.
56.Pp
57Character sequences of the form
58.Dq Li \&%d
59in
60.Ar command ,
61where
62.Sq Li d
63is a digit from 1 to 9, are replaced by the
64.Li d Ns \'th
65following unused
66.Ar argument .
67In this case, the largest digit number of arguments are discarded for
68each execution of
69.Ar command .
70.Pp
71The options are as follows:
72.Bl -tag -width indent
73.It Fl #
74Normally arguments are taken singly; the optional number
75.Fl #
76specifies the number of arguments to be passed to
77.Ar command .
78If the number is zero,
79.Ar command
80is run, without arguments, once for each
81.Ar argument .
82.Pp
83If any sequences of
84.Dq Li \&%d
85occur in
86.Ar command ,
87the
88.Fl #
89option is ignored.
90.It Fl a Ar c
91The use of the character
92.Sq Li %
93as a magic character may be changed with the
94.Fl a
95option.
96.It Fl d
97Display the commands that would have been executed, but do not actually
98execute them.
99.El
100.Sh ENVIRONMENT
101The following environment variable affects the execution of
102.Nm :
103.Bl -tag -width SHELL
104.It Ev SHELL
105Pathname of shell to use.
106If this variable is not defined, the Bourne shell is used.
107.El
108.Sh EXAMPLES
109.Bl -tag -width apply -compact
110.It Li "apply echo a*"
111is similar to
112.Xr ls 1 ;
113.It Li "apply \-2 cmp a1 b1 a2 b2 a3 b3"
114compares the `a' files to the `b' files;
115.It Li "apply \-0 who 1 2 3 4 5"
116runs
117.Xr who 1
1185 times; and
119.It Li "apply \'ln %1 /usr/joe\'" *
120links all files in the current directory to the directory
121.Pa /usr/joe .
122.El
123.Sh FILES
124.Bl -tag -width /bin/sh -compact
125.It Pa /bin/sh
126default shell
127.El
128.Sh AUTHORS
129.An Rob Pike
130.Sh BUGS
131Shell metacharacters in
132.Ar command
133may have bizarre effects; it is best to enclose complicated
134commands in single quotes
135.Pq '' .
136.Pp
137The
138.Nm
139utility does not recognize multibyte characters.
140.Sh HISTORY
141The
142.Nm
143command appeared in
144.Bx 4.2 .
145