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Re: Argument list too long [FAQ Possibility]


I've noticed the 32K limitation for a long time now (few years at
least).  Never really
thought too much about it though because I also assumed that it was because
lpCommandLine in CreateProcess() maxed out at 32,000 characters (at least
according to the msdn documentation).

Of course, that assumption was also made without looking at the cygwin
source code
to see how any of it is implemented so I could very well be wrong on
that one.  And
if so, I probably should have just kept my mouth shut!

Sean

On Thu, 6 Jan 2005 17:46:37 -0500, Buchbinder, Barry (NIH/NIAID)
<BBuchbinder@niaid.nih.gov> wrote:
> 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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>

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