ken wrote:
so, i've stumbled over rmmproc's limit in the past (and, like others,
have quietly, manually, done it in chunks instead), but i don't think
i've ever seen a similar limit with "rm". and now i'm wondering, why
not?
Well, if you're a young whippersnapper, you wouldn't have seen that :-)
i'm actually a relatively old whippersnapper as these things go: my
first UNIX was some internal bell labs predecessor to System III,
ca. 1979. and yes -- i've certainly hit such limits in the past,
and embraced xargs with a vengeance as a result.
but now isn't then. it's too bad we can't make rmmproc work as well
as a modern rm. but having just browsed the mh sources a bit, i
begin to see the problem. as always. :-)
paul
certainly this works just fine:
Depends on the OS. SunOS 4, that probably would have choked (or maybe it
was Irix that had what seemed to me to be a remarkably small argv limit).
The limit is hardcoded at MAXARGS (1000), and it's probably been
that way for a decade or two; considering the age of the original
MH, it's easy to see how that limit probably seemed like it made
sense back in the day. Note that it only applies when you have an
external rmmproc; if you don't have one there is no limit.
--Ken
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=---------------------
paul fox, pgf(_at_)foxharp(_dot_)boston(_dot_)ma(_dot_)us (arlington, ma,
where it's 33.1 degrees)
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