Argument list too long.

[Dag Wieers]

On Thu, 11 Sep 2003, Sean Estabrooks wrote:

Hey Sean,

>   You just don't hear many people complaining about this as a 
> problem.  xargs allows you to combine the maximum number of 
> arguments per invocation of the command (-s option).   This limit 
> isn't reached very often in practice, and no matter what value you 
> pick someone will find a command that exceeds the limit.  

You say the limit isn't reached very often in practice, I must beg to 
differ.

The argument size is a balance between memory-usage and practical 
considerations. Computers are becoming more powerful and people can do 
more powerful things. So you see that such balances change from time 
to time when computer-power increases and I think it is time to modify 
this one too. (And yes, it should not be a Red Hat thing)

Here's the link again:

	Linux Journal: "Argument list too long": Beyond Arguments and Limitations                                     
	http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6060

Read the article and especially the comments. xargs was already mentioned


>    It usually doesn't take much effort to organize things so that this 
> just isn't an issue.   Perhaps if you posted a real script where you
> are having problems, suggestions could be made on alternative 
> methods.

Sure, you can always organize things so that this just isn't an issue. But 
if working around something takes increasingly more time than just 
executing the command, there's something wrong IMO.

I just gave you an example where it isn't very practical to use xargs 
because you have to type your passphrase multiple times. Automating that 
however would make it even more ugly, and all that because I can only have 
128Kb in arguments. You see how silly computers can be ;)

--   dag wieers,  dag at wieers.com,  http://dag.wieers.com/   --
[Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors]