ls question

[kathi]

I have a script which involves an ls on a directory which contains files derived from an external source. All works fine, but VERY occasionally we get a massive number of files and the ls throws the following error:

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

Is there anything I can do to stop that ? We're running AIX 4 on an RS/6000. Last night we got almost 13000 files!

 

[ChrisCW]

You could try using the find command instead and outputting to a file??

ie. instead of ls /directory
use find /directory > filelist

Then it will just create a big file!

ChrisCW

** Helen Waite is now in charge of all rush orders. If you are in a hurry, just go to Helen Waite.

 

[kathi]

Thanks.

I got round this in the end by using find, but that gave me the whole directory listing too. Eventually stripped this out using basename.

Original code:

for usename in `ls pbe_rep*.txt`
do

Replaced by:

for usename in `find $LOCATION -name "pbe_rep*.txt"`
do
usename=`basename $usename`

 

[mrn]

Use the find command:

find . -print | xargs ls -ld >/tmp/list_of_files

--
| Mike Nixon
| Unix Admin
|

http://www.parcandgo.co.uk

----------------------------

 

[iribach]

or:
for file in `ls or find whatouwant`
do ....
done
the shell has limits 1024 ot 2048 params
depending yous OS