Is there a limit on CHMOD ?

[maxcrook]

I have a script that chmods files in a directory, however the following error appears when there are more than 600 files present in the directory where the chmod is taking place.
Does anyone know what is causing this?
Is it a unix bug? or a problem with my system ?

/usr/bin/chmod: 0403-027 The parameter list is too long.

 

[alexhu]

Its a UNIX 'thing' - you need to code some sort of loop in your script

Alex

 

[bjverzal]

Look up "xargs"...

for file in `ls |xargs -L 100` ; do
chmod blah blah $file
done

The same limits exist in ls, chown, chmod, etc...although they may be bigger, they do exist.

The "-L" command specifies how many parameters are passed to the program per pass. In my example, if there are 600 files in your directory, it will break them into 6 groups of 100.

Bill.