chloe K wrote:
Hi
My ls command not works properly
Are there many files problem?
[host]# ls -al |wc -l
55264
[host]# ls -al *.db |more
-bash: /bin/ls: Argument list too long
[host]# ls -al *
-bash: /bin/ls: Argument list too long
[host]# ls -al *.*
-bash: /bin/ls: Argument list too long
Note that this comes from bash, not ls, and it results from expansion of
the list to more characters than will fit in the buffer used to pass
data to the (ls) command.
The kernel max has been expanded recently, but the bash shell probably
has some kind of limit. If you have a lot of name, really long names,
you can hit this. There are many ways to get around the problem, the
best is not to have everything in one directory ;-)
you can do workarounds with find, xargs, little shell loops, etc:
ls -a | while read name; do ls -l "$name"; done
if you have to use this type of directory structure you may have to
learn other workarounds.
--
Bill Davidsen <davidsen@xxxxxxx>
"We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked." - from Slashdot
