April 4, 1994 APPLY 1

### NAME

apply - apply a command to a set of arguments

### SYNOPSIS

apply [-ac] [-#] command argument ...

### DESCRIPTION

apply 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.

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

### ENVIRONMENT

The following environment variable affects the execution of :

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

### FILES

```/bin/sh`
  Default shell

### EXAMPLES

```apply echo *`
  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`.

### HISTORY

The apply command appeared in 4.2BSD.

### AUTHORS

Rob Pike

### BUGS

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