[TriLUG] Re: argument list too long

[James Manning]

> I like that workaround suggested by Joseph Tate:
>   ls | xargs -n 1 <WHATEVER>

FWIW, xargs has a built-in size limit (20k iirc) which is nice since
it's the size limit you're generally hitting.

So, if I have something to run on all the files:

ls | xargs <WHATEVER>

that'll generally get you the least number of times for having to run
the "WHATEVER" (assuming it's something you can't tell to recursive do
current dir or something similar).  Many times this'll mean running
the "WHATEVER" 10 or 12 times instead of 10000, but if the "WHATEVER"
is something that can only do one at a time, -n 1 is still the way to
go, of course :)
-- 
James Manning <http://www.sublogic.com/james/>
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