APPLY(1)

NAME
apply - apply a command to a set of arguments

SYNOPSIS
apply [ -v ] [ -Pn ] [ -ac ] [ -n ] command args ...

DESCRIPTION
Apply 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 character `%' may be changed by the -a option. The -v option causes apply to print each command to stderr before it is run.

Examples:
    apply echo *
is similar to ls(1);
    apply -2 cmp a1 b1 a2 b2 ...
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.

PARALLEL SUPPORT
Apply runs n commands concurrently, where n is given in the -Pn option. If the -Pn option is missing, apply looks for the environment variable PARALLEL and uses its numeric value for n. If this fails, n defaults to 1.

SEE ALSO
sh(1), make(1), environ(7)

AUTHOR
Rob Pike

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

There is no way to pass a literal `%2' if `%' is the argument expansion character.