Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 02:18:11 -0500 (CDT) From: "Matthew D. Fuller" <fullermd@futuresouth.com> To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Cc: Shawn Ramsey <shawn@luke.cpl.net>, questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: deleted huge directory Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.971023020754.29151F-100000@shell.futuresouth.com> In-Reply-To: <19971023163601.11925@lemis.com>
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On Thu, 23 Oct 1997, Greg Lehey wrote: > On Thu, Oct 23, 1997 at 01:16:35AM -0500, Matthew D. Fuller wrote: > > Don't know if this helps, but the reason I suggested echo'ing * (all > > files, of course) into a file is to see if you could do this: > > rm 'cat /place/some/file/list' > > or something similar; I'm not exactly an expert when it comes to piping > > stuff from a file. > > Someone else? Can this be done, and could it work? > > You can ls larger directories than you can expand with *. The latter > is limited to ARG_MAX characters, including \0 at the end of the > strings. ARG_MAX is defined in /usr/include/sys/syslimits.h: > > #define ARG_MAX 65536 /* max bytes for an exec function */ > > At a guess, the names in the directory are an order of magnitude > longer than that. Aha. I think that, at some level, I knew there was a limit like that. In that case, you're going to have some trouble. Maybe do a series of ls's or echo's, echoing a* > file1, b* > file2, etc, depending on what the files are named. If an echo * can't work, I'd guess an rm * wouldn't either. You'll have to find some way to piecemeal this up ( I would say info files that contain the dir list; my pet project of the night) and rm 'cat <blah>' for however many files you have. I think someone will have to give a hint what's in there as far as file names are concerned. The only news server I have access to doesn't have a directory like that there. > > Greg > *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* | FreeBSD; the way computers were meant to be | * "The only reason I'm burning my candle at both ends, is * | that I haven't figured out how to light the middle yet."| * fullermd@futuresouth.com :-} MAtthew Fuller * | http://keystone.westminster.edu/~fullermd | *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
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