V10/man/man1/apply.1

.TH APPLY 1 
.CT 1 shell
.SH NAME
apply, pick \- repeatedly apply a command; select arguments
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B apply
[
.BI -a c
]
[
.BI - n
]
.I command arg ...
.PP
.B pick
[
.I arg ...
]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Apply
runs the named
.I command
on each
argument
.I arg
in turn.
Normally arguments are chosen singly; the optional number
.I n
specifies the number of arguments to be passed to
.I command.
If
.I n
is zero,
.I command
is run without arguments once for each
.I arg.
Character sequences of the form 
.BI % d
in
.I command,
where
.I d
is a digit from 1 to 9,
are replaced by the
.IR d th
following unused
.I arg.
If any such sequences occur,
.I n
is ignored,
and the number of arguments passed to
.I command
is the maximum value of
.I d
in
.I command.
The character
.L %
may be changed by the
.B -a
option.
.PP
.I Pick
writes each argument to the standard error and reads a reply.
If the reply is
.LR y ,
the argument is echoed to the standard output;
if the reply is
.LR q ,
.I pick
exits without reading any more arguments;
there is no output for any other response.
If there are no arguments,
lines of the standard input are taken instead.
.SH EXAMPLES
.TP
.L
apply echo *
Time-consuming way to do 
.LR ls .
.TP
.L
apply -2 cmp a1 b1 a2 b2
Compare the `a' files to the `b' files.
.TP
.L
wc -l `pick *.[ch]`
Interactively select `.c' and `.h' files and count the lines in each.
.TP
.L
apply "wc -l %1" `pick *.[ch]`
Same, but use a separate process to count each file.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.IR sh (1)
.SH BUGS
There is no way to pass a literal
.L %2
if
.L %
is 
.I apply's
argument expansion character.