ken wrote: > >so, i've stumbled over rmmproc's limit in the past (and, like others, > >have quietly, manually, done it in chunks instead), but i don't think > >i've ever seen a similar limit with "rm". and now i'm wondering, why > >not? > > Well, if you're a young whippersnapper, you wouldn't have seen that :-)
i'm actually a relatively old whippersnapper as these things go: my first UNIX was some internal bell labs predecessor to System III, ca. 1979. and yes -- i've certainly hit such limits in the past, and embraced xargs with a vengeance as a result. but now isn't then. it's too bad we can't make rmmproc work as well as a modern rm. but having just browsed the mh sources a bit, i begin to see the problem. as always. :-) paul > > >certainly this works just fine: > > Depends on the OS. SunOS 4, that probably would have choked (or maybe it > was Irix that had what seemed to me to be a remarkably small argv limit). > > The limit is hardcoded at MAXARGS (1000), and it's probably been > that way for a decade or two; considering the age of the original > MH, it's easy to see how that limit probably seemed like it made > sense back in the day. Note that it only applies when you have an > external rmmproc; if you don't have one there is no limit. > > --Ken > > _______________________________________________ > Nmh-workers mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers =--------------------- paul fox, [email protected] (arlington, ma, where it's 33.1 degrees) _______________________________________________ Nmh-workers mailing list [email protected] https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers
