Could ARG_MAX be increased?

[Pavel Gubin]

On Sat, Sep 25, 2004 at 01:05:09PM +0900, horio shoichi wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 14:42:11 +0200 "Simon L. Nielsen" <simon at FreeBSD.org> wrote:
> > On 2004.09.23 21:46:48 +0300, Giorgos Keramidas wrote:

> > > Yeah.  I think the real answer is to learn about find as you and others
> > > have suggested.
> > 
> > While it is correct that find is the best solution e.g. when
> > scripting, it can be a PITA e.g. when moving a lot of files that you
> > have to use find/xargs instead of simply "mv bla.*.1 dir/".  I know
> > how to use find, but it takes somewhat longer to type...
> > 
> > Just my 0.02(insert local currency).
> > 
> > Anyway, I'm probably just going to bump MAX_ARGS locally on my next
> > world rebuild :-).
[]
> Many simple cases go with echo instead of find, so that the stupid
> "-maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1" phrase can be eliminated.
> 
> E.g., following lines are equivalent in sh and t?csh:
> 
> % mv bla.*.1 dir/
> % echo bla.*.1|xargs -J% mv % dir/
> 
> Or even to (override 5000 limit may be necessary):
> 
> % echo bla.*.1 dir/|xargs mv

  Then this returns us to start point because find builds list of files
internally and does not affected by MAX_ARGS limit, while shell builds for
echo exactly the same argument list as for mv. And also I think we're going
to discuss the color of bikeshed :-)

-- 
Pavel Gubin
TUSC&R / Industrial Electronics dept / System Administrator
2:5005/14 at fidonet / Phone +7-3822-423067 / ICQ 28835566