Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 10:56:54 -0800 From: Alfred Perlstein <bright@wintelcom.net> To: Sebastiaan van Erk <sebster@sebster.com> Cc: Zero Sum <count@shalimar.net.au>, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: argument list too long Message-ID: <20001116105654.G830@fw.wintelcom.net> In-Reply-To: <20001116145641.A22842@sebster.com>; from sebster@sebster.com on Thu, Nov 16, 2000 at 02:56:41PM %2B0100 References: <20001116091607.A97857@sebster.com> <00111621362707.00522@shalimar.net.au> <20001116122313.A69018@sebster.com> <00111700205500.61931@shalimar.net.au> <20001116145641.A22842@sebster.com>
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* Sebastiaan van Erk <sebster@sebster.com> [001116 05:57] wrote: > Zero Sum wrote: > > > No, that was not what I was suggesting. But you are describing a common > > problem - not just with tar, so I gave a general solution so that it > > covered similar problems. I then went on to cover your problem specificaly. > > This is NOT a general solution. The problem is that if you want to give > a _generic_ number of _ARGUMENTS_ to a program, then you run into the > "argument list too long" error. Xargs does nothing except split something > which you want to do in _ONE_ process into _SEVERAL_. So this is definately > a workaround, and not a solution to the problem. The only real solution > is some _generic_ way to be able to read command line arguments from file. Can you please suggest a reasonable limit to the argument list? Would a gigabyte work for you? maybe. Will that cover all mega-long arg lists? no. Solution: use xargs. bye, -- -Alfred Perlstein - [bright@wintelcom.net|alfred@freebsd.org] "I have the heart of a child; I keep it in a jar on my desk." To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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