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Message-ID: <4309D026.8000702@byu.net>
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2005 07:16:22 -0600
From: Eric Blake <ebb9 AT byu DOT net>
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To: Morten Kjarulff <MKJ AT dk DOT ibm DOT com>
CC: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: bash: /usr/bin/rm: Argument list too long
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According to Morten Kjarulff on 8/22/2005 6:56 AM:
> Hi,
> 
> If I try to rm many files, or fewer files with long names I get "bash:
> /usr/bin/rm: Argument list too long". Can anyone tell the limits?

The limits are pretty low if you are using Windows mechanisms, although I
don't know the exact limit (they can be increased by mounting /bin as
cygwin-executable, but even then still have limits).  But generally, if
you are trying to pass that much data on the command line, there is
usually a better solution that does not even expand the wildcard.

> 
> Is the solution something like "for file in * ; do rm $file ; done"?

It is, if you don't mind doing it one file at a time.

If you don't mind deleting the directory, there is always this (let rm do
the recursion, instead of calling out every file yourself):
cd .. && rm -R tmp

Or if you want to delete as fast as possible without surpassing
command-line limits, there is this (it works, since echo is a shell
builtin, and since xargs is getting the list from stdin and not the
command line, then calling rm as many times as needed with a group of
filenames as command-line arguments):
echo * | xargs rm

By the way, this is not a cygwin-specific problem, it is just that cygwin
tends to have a smaller command-line limit than many other platforms.

> 
> same thing for ls:
> mkj008 AT mcmkj01w /tmp
> $ ls *

See the coreutils FAQ - 'ls' is MUCH more efficient than 'ls *', and does
the SAME THING!

http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/faq/coreutils-faq.html#Argument-list-too-long

- --
Life is short - so eat dessert first!

Eric Blake             ebb9 AT byu DOT net
volunteer cygwin coreutils maintainer
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