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Date:      Mon, 24 Sep 2007 13:58:27 +0200
From:      Erik Trulsson <ertr1013@student.uu.se>
To:        David Southwell <david@vizion2000.net>
Cc:        Dan Nelson <dnelson@allantgroup.com>, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: stdout -determining size of??
Message-ID:  <20070924115827.GA87782@owl.midgard.homeip.net>
In-Reply-To: <200709240441.25547.david@vizion2000.net>
References:  <200709221052.41399.david@vizion2000.net> <200709240409.56605.david@vizion2000.net> <20070924111448.GA87613@owl.midgard.homeip.net> <200709240441.25547.david@vizion2000.net>

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On Mon, Sep 24, 2007 at 04:41:25AM -0700, David Southwell wrote:
> On Monday 24 September 2007 04:14:48 Erik Trulsson wrote:
> > On Mon, Sep 24, 2007 at 04:09:56AM -0700, David Southwell wrote:
> > > On Saturday 22 September 2007 12:00:41 Dan Nelson wrote:
> > > > In the last episode (Sep 22), David Southwell said:
> > > > > How is the the size of stdout controlled.
> > > > >
> > > > > My query comes about because I had a shell running for ages with
> > > > > unlimited history and found it had gobbled uyp all the space
> > > > > available to stdout!!!
> > > >
> > > > Could you provide the error message that made you think that stdout has
> > > > a limit?  "stdout" could be anything: tty, socket, pipe, file, etc.  If
> > > > you have redirected stdout from a script to a file, like "ls > ls.txt",
> > > > then it's possible that you filled up a filesystem.
> > >
> > > Here is what made me ask the question:
> > > ------------------------------
> > > Weekly output report:
> > >
> > > Cleaning up kernel database files:
> > >
> > > Rebuilding locate database:
> > > locate.code: stdout: No space left on device
> >
> > Here stdout was almost certainly re-directed to some file on the disk.
> > Unfortunately the disk was full.
> >
> > > Rebuilding whatis database:
> > >
> > > -- End of weekly output --
> > > ___________________________
> > >
> > > After getting the message I dumped the history and locate.updatedb ran
> > > without any problem.
> >
> > The shells history is probably stored in a file on the disk.
> > When you removed that file the space became available again.
> >
> >
> > It looks like you simply filled up the filesystem.
> > Nothing to do with 'the size of stdout'.
> 
> I understand but how can I manage this?
> 
> Do you happen to know how to configure  history storage?

That depends entirely on the shell.

> It looks as though I 
> need to choose a filesystem where running run out of space is sufficiently 
> improbable to be inconceivable!! The shell in question is an X Konsole.

'an X Konsole' is not a shell.  It is just a terminal window in which you
can run a shell.  Your shell is most likely something like bash or tcsh or
zsh or sh.


Of course the terminal emulator can (and in this case probably does) have
its own history which is completely separate from that of the shell.
(The shell's history consist of the commands you have given it. The
terminal's of the output it has received.) The history might of course not
be stored in a file, but in memory instead, in which case you would run out
of swap.



-- 
<Insert your favourite quote here.>
Erik Trulsson
ertr1013@student.uu.se



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