V8/usr/man/man1/apply.1

.TH APPLY 1 
.SH NAME
apply \- apply a command to a set of arguments
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B apply
[
.BI \-a c
] [
.BI \- n
] command args ...
.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 
.RI % d
in
.I command,
where
.I d
is a digit from 1 to 9,
are replaced by the
\fId\fP'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 `%' may be changed by the
.B \-a
option.
.PP
.SH EXAMPLES
.TP
apply echo *
is a time-consuming way to do `ls \-1'
.TP
apply \-2 cmp a1 b1 a2 b2 ...
compares the `a' files to the `b' files
.TP
apply \-0 date \`seq 20\`
runs 
.I date
20 times; like `for i in \`seq 20\`; do date; done'
.SH "SEE ALSO"
sh(1)
.SH BUGS
Shell metacharacters in
.I command
may have bizarre effects; it is best to enclose complicated
commands in single quotes \(aa\ \(aa.
.br
There is no way to pass a literal `%2' if `%' is the
argument expansion character.