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APPLY(1)                                 BSD General Commands Manual                                APPLY(1)

NAME
     apply -- apply a command to a set of arguments

SYNOPSIS
     apply [-a c] [-d] [-#] command argument ...

DESCRIPTION
     The apply utility runs the named command on each argument argument in turn.

     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 argument.  In this case, the largest digit number of arguments are discarded
     for each execution of command.

     The options are as follows:

     -#      Normally arguments are taken singly; the optional number -# specifies the number of arguments
             to be passed to command.  If the number is zero, command is run, without arguments, once for
             each argument.

             If any sequences of ``%d'' occur in command, the -# option is ignored.

     -a c    The use of the character `%' as a magic character may be changed with the -a option.

     -d      Display the commands that would have been executed, but do not actually execute them.

ENVIRONMENT
     The following environment variable affects the execution of apply:

     SHELL  Pathname of shell to use.  If this variable is not defined, the Bourne shell is used.

EXAMPLES
     apply echo a*
            is similar to ls(1);
     apply -2 cmp a1 b1 a2 b2 a3 b3
            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.

FILES
     /bin/sh  default shell

AUTHORS
     Rob Pike

BUGS
     Shell metacharacters in command may have bizarre effects; it is best to enclose complicated commands in
     single quotes ('').

HISTORY
     The apply command appeared in 4.2BSD.

BSD                                             April 4, 1994                                            BSD