xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/apply/apply.1 (revision dd41de95a84d979615a2ef11df6850622bf6184e)
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28.\"     @(#)apply.1	8.2 (Berkeley) 4/4/94
29.\" $FreeBSD$
30.\"
31.Dd December 13, 2006
32.Dt APPLY 1
33.Os
34.Sh NAME
35.Nm apply
36.Nd apply a command to a set of arguments
37.Sh SYNOPSIS
38.Nm
39.Op Fl a Ar c
40.Op Fl d
41.Op Fl #
42.Ar command argument ...
43.Sh DESCRIPTION
44The
45.Nm
46utility runs the named
47.Ar command
48on each
49argument
50.Ar argument
51in turn.
52.Pp
53Character sequences of the form
54.Dq Li \&%d
55in
56.Ar command ,
57where
58.Sq Li d
59is a digit from 1 to 9, are replaced by the
60.Li d Ns \'th
61following unused
62.Ar argument .
63In this case, the largest digit number of arguments are discarded for
64each execution of
65.Ar command .
66.Pp
67The options are as follows:
68.Bl -tag -width indent
69.It Fl #
70Normally arguments are taken singly; the optional number
71.Fl #
72specifies the number of arguments to be passed to
73.Ar command .
74If the number is zero,
75.Ar command
76is run, without arguments, once for each
77.Ar argument .
78.Pp
79If any sequences of
80.Dq Li \&%d
81occur in
82.Ar command ,
83the
84.Fl #
85option is ignored.
86.It Fl a Ar c
87The use of the character
88.Sq Li %
89as a magic character may be changed with the
90.Fl a
91option.
92.It Fl d
93Display the commands that would have been executed, but do not actually
94execute them.
95.El
96.Sh ENVIRONMENT
97The following environment variable affects the execution of
98.Nm :
99.Bl -tag -width SHELL
100.It Ev SHELL
101Pathname of shell to use.
102If this variable is not defined, the Bourne shell is used.
103.El
104.Sh FILES
105.Bl -tag -width /bin/sh -compact
106.It Pa /bin/sh
107default shell
108.El
109.Sh EXAMPLES
110.Bl -tag -width apply -compact
111.It Li "apply echo *"
112is similar to
113.Xr ls 1 ;
114.It Li "apply \-2 cmp a1 b1 a2 b2 a3 b3"
115compares the `a' files to the `b' files;
116.It Li "apply \-0 who 1 2 3 4 5"
117runs
118.Xr who 1
1195 times; and
120.It Li "apply \'ln %1 /usr/joe\'" *
121links all files in the current directory to the directory
122.Pa /usr/joe .
123.El
124.Sh HISTORY
125The
126.Nm
127command appeared in
128.Bx 4.2 .
129.Sh AUTHORS
130.An Rob Pike
131.Sh BUGS
132Shell metacharacters in
133.Ar command
134may have bizarre effects; it is best to enclose complicated
135commands in single quotes
136.Pq '' .
137.Pp
138The
139.Nm
140utility does not recognize multibyte characters.
141