> Basically, I've occasionally have problems with the limit imposed by the > "*" operator when handling files. E.g.
You are running up against the kernel ARG_MAX limit. See this pointer for details. http://www.gnu.org/software/fileutils/doc/faq/#Argument%20list%20too%20long > [tonyl@saturn 2002-replaced]$ rm -f * > bash: /bin/rm: Argument list too long Yes. This is one of the tradeoffs that was made in the kernel. Not all memory is completely dynamic. Try this, at your own risk of course. I put the echo in there because the command scares me and should scare you too. :-) ls | xargs echo rm -f > [tonyl@saturn 2002-replaced]$ ls | wc -l > 231937 (yeah yeah I know!) Wow! > [tonyl@saturn 2002-replaced]$ ls * | wc -l > bash: /bin/ls: Argument list too long getconf ARG_MAX The kernel gives you a buffer of that size. The shell tries to put the contents of the '*' glob expansion into that buffer. It can't. The argument list is too long. It fails. The ls command is not run in that case. > I find it interesting that the `ls' works for an obscene number of > files, yet `ls *' doesn't. bash fails nicely as above, but /bin/sh > either returns "Segmentation fault" or kills my connection! On which systems? "Segmentation fault" is a bug to be reported. On GNU systems /bin/sh is bash and so I suspect you are not on a GNU OS but on a different OS with bash ported to it? In either case if /bin/sh is dieing with a SIGSEGV then I would report it as a bug. As an aside, if you suspect that a shell problem will kill the shell, then stack another one first. $ sh # stack a shell $ ls * # possible killer command $ Segmentation fault # shell died $ # Back to the first shell and not logged out. That is a good way to avoid getting logged out while testing. > Any ideas (other than "don't get involved with legacy systems that store > lots of files in a single dir")? Well, that would be good for other reasons. Most systems that have cases where things like that are needed use the first letter or frequently the first two letters as the directory that the file is stored into. Things like that are terminfo directories and mail spool directories and web cache directories and things like that. Bob _______________________________________________ Bug-fileutils mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-fileutils
