URL: <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?62622>
Summary: E2BIG misbehaviour Project: findutils Submitter: freaky Submitted: Mon 13 Jun 2022 01:34:18 PM UTC Category: xargs Severity: 3 - Normal Item Group: Wrong result Status: None Privacy: Public Assigned to: None Originator Name: Originator Email: Open/Closed: Open Release: None Discussion Lock: Any Fixed Release: None _______________________________________________________ Follow-up Comments: ------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon 13 Jun 2022 01:34:18 PM UTC By: Thomas Hurst <freaky> Attempting to use the argument limit xargs declares in --show-args with -s results in very unusual behaviour from xargs (and presumably other buildcmd users). This case shows the case of a single byte argument but similar behaviour is observed with longer arguments: $ limit=$(xargs --show-limits </dev/null 2>&1 | awk '/actually use/{print $NF}') $ yes | xargs -ts $limit /bin/sh -c 'echo;echo "$(date +%s.%N): $#"' 3>&1 1>&2 2>&3 | awk '{printf(".");fflush();}' . 1655121905.912999462: 130756 . 1655121906.012978619: 130758 .... 1655121906.421159119: 204309 . 1655121906.517402529: 57205 ............................ 1655121909.326479277: 208907 . 1655121909.432364542: 52607 Note the fluctuating argument count and number of command attempts. This gets quite large, so here is the same output with each line of dots replaced with an attempt count: 1 attempts 1655121905.912999462: 130756 1 attempts 1655121906.012978619: 130758 4 attempts 1655121906.421159119: 204309 1 attempts 1655121906.517402529: 57205 28 attempts 1655121909.326479277: 208907 1 attempts 1655121909.432364542: 52607 409 attempts 1655121951.269149669: 209292 1 attempts 1655121951.364246685: 52222 1684 attempts 1655122117.319284123: 209368 1 attempts 1655122117.424518362: 52146 17382 attempts 1655123835.592837186: 209376 1 attempts 1655123835.690910762: 52138 2 attempts 1655123835.885544564: 130756 1 attempts 1655123835.990007112: 130757 1 attempts 1655123836.088681141: 0 2 attempts 1655123836.290857561: 130756 1 attempts 1655123836.388672514: 130757 1 attempts 1655123836.484069641: 0 It stabilizes at the latter three, going between 130756, 130757, and 0(!) arguments to each invocation repeatedly. _______________________________________________________ Reply to this item at: <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?62622> _______________________________________________ Message sent via Savannah https://savannah.gnu.org/