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Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 00:51:23 +0000
From: Darren Wyn Rees <merlin@netlink.co.uk>
To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: "rm -rf *" - "argument list too long"
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References: <20000507201410.M540@netlink.co.uk> <39160161.4BCFEFE3@gorean.org>
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On Sun, May 07, 2000 at 04:50:57PM -0700, Doug Barton wrote:

> 	First, ignore the overly complicated and potentially dangerous answers
> so far on this thread. :) Second, think about it for a minute. If "*"
> provides a list that's too long for rm to handle, why not break it up
> into smaller chunks?

Good suggestion... And it's what I did (though I didn't mention it).
However, what I found was that it was still taking lots of time
to "break it up"... eg. I'd try rm *54* and it wouldn't work,
so I'd try rm *53* and it wouldn't work... but then, rm *52* would.
I didn't try using a [range], so your suggestion was helpful.  Thanks.


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