Unix in a Nutshell, 4th Edition

Name

for

Synopsis

    for x [in list]do
     commands
    done

For variable x (in optional list of values) do commands. If in list is omitted, "$@" (the positional parameters) is assumed.

Examples

Paginate files specified on the command line; save each result:

    for file; do
         pr $file > $file.tmp
    done

Same, but put entire loop into the background:

    for file; do
         pr $file > $file.tmp
    done &

Search chapters for a list of words (like fgrep -f):

    for item in 'cat program_list'
    do
         echo "Checking chapters for"
         echo "references to program $item..."
         grep -c "$item.[co]" chap*
    done

Extract a one-word title from each file and use as new filename:

    for file
    do
         name='sed -n 's/NAME: //p' $file'
         mv $file $name
    done