apply(1) General Commands Manual apply(1)
Name
apply - apply a command to a set of arguments
Syntax
apply [-ac] [-n] command args...
Description
The program runs the named command on each argument arg in turn. Normally arguments are chosen singly; the optional number n specifies the
number 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 percent sign (%) character can be changed
by the -a option.
Examples
The following command line is similar to
apply echo *
The next example compares the specified a files to the specified b files:
apply -2 cmp a1 b1 a2 b2 ...
The following example run the command 5 times and links all files in the current directory to the directory
apply 'ln %1 /usr/joe' *
Restrictions
Shell metacharacters in command may have unexpected results; it is best to enclose complicated commands in single quotes (' ').
You cannot pass a literal, '%2', if the percent sign (%) is the argument expansion character.
See Also
sh(1)
apply(1)
