bsd man page for 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 num-
       ber 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 similar to ls(1);
	      apply -2 cmp a1 b1 a2 b2 ...
       compares the `a' files to the `b' files;
	      apply -0 who 1 2 3 4 5
       runs who(1) 5 times; and
	      apply 'ln %1 /usr/joe' *
       links all files in the current directory to the directory /usr/joe.

SEE ALSO
       sh(1)

AUTHOR
       Rob Pike

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.

4.2 Berkeley Distribution					  April 29, 1985							  APPLY(1)