RE: Argument list too long [FAQ Possibility]

["Buchbinder, Barry (NIH/NIAID)" <BBuchbinder at niaid dot nih dot gov>]

Seems like this is asked about often enough to be in the FAQ.

At Wednesday, January 05, 2005 2:09 PM, Igor Pechtchanski wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, Emil Rojas wrote:
> 
>> At 10:26 AM 1/5/2005, you wrote:
>>> On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, Emil Rojas wrote:
>>> 
>>>> I am providing grep with a long list of files, e.g. 1200 files
>>>> with about 80K characters. 
>>>> 
>>>> I get the following
>>>> 
>>>> bash: /bin/grep: Argument list too long
>>>> 
>>>> If I reduce the total characters to less then 32K it works fine. 
>>>> This list is a list of the source files in a development tree
>>>> retrieved with find.
>>> 
>>> a) wrong list.
>> 
>> And what was the right list?
> 
> See <http://cygwin.com/lists.html#available-lists>.  I redirected it
> to the right list and set the Reply-To accordingly.  I also did so
> for this message - please make sure your mailer respects the Reply-To
> header. 
> 
>>> b) try "xargs".
>> 
>> mounting per your instructions fixed the problem.
> 
> Good.  However, "xargs" is the generally used solution for this
> anyway -- and it's also faster since it doesn't have to build up and
> then parse the argument list string.
> 
>>>> I just updated to see if this announcement,
>>>> 
>>>> Updated: findutils-4.2.10-5,
>>>> http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin/2004-12/msg00207.html would
>>>> fix it, but it does not appear to do so.
>>> 
>>> c) why would findutils fix a problem with grep?
>>> 
>>>> I know this is not a problem under linux, and I don't remember it
>>>> being a problem in earlier versions of cygwin.  Is this a feature
>>>> or a bug? If it is a bug, despite reading abut reporting bugs on
>>>> the cygwin web site I still am totally uncertain about how one
>>>> would report this bug. Guidance here would be appreciated.
>>> 
>>> d) CGF suggested
>>>    "mount -X c:\cygwin\bin /usr/bin; mount -X c:\cygwin\bin /bin"
>>>    Don't know how well it'll work, but it's worth a try.
>> 
>> What is CGF?
> 
> <http://cygwin.com/acronyms/#CGF>.
> 
>>> Oh, and please review <http://cygwin.com/problems.html>.
>> 
>> I did, before and after, I it got me to here, as possibly the least
>> obnoxious thing I could do.
> 
> By "here" do you mean the cygwin-talk list?  And where, pray tell, is
> the cygwin-talk list mentioned on that page?  Or do you mean the
> "lists.html" link that mentions cygwin-talk as the list where you
> could be ridiculed for asking just about anything?  BTW, the "main
> cygwin list" that it refers to is <cygwin at cygwin dot com>, which,
> incidentally, is the list I redirected your question to.
> HTH,
> 	Igor
> --
> 				http://cs.nyu.edu/~pechtcha/
>       |\      _,,,---,,_		pechtcha@cs.nyu.edu
> ZZZzz /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_		igor@watson.ibm.com
>      |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'		Igor Pechtchanski, Ph.D.
>     '---''(_/--'  `-'\_) fL	a.k.a JaguaR-R-R-r-r-r-.-.-.  Meow!
> 
> "The Sun will pass between the Earth and the Moon tonight for a total
> Lunar eclipse..." -- WCBS Radio Newsbrief, Oct 27 2004, 12:01 pm EDT

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