[techtalk] Limits of grep?

[Julie]

From: Subba Rao <subb3 at attglobal.net>
> I have a directory of 10000+ text files and would like to search for
> some strings in these files. When I tried using "grep" command with an
> asterisk, I get the error message somthing to the effect,
>
> "File argument list too long"

You're exceeding the longest argument list which can be passed
to a command via the exec() call.  This is NCARGS_MAX.

> What is the file argument limit for grep? I guess you need the grep source
> for this. I did not find any information in the man page.

Nope, this is a kernel limit.

> Are there any other recommended tools to search through such large list of
> files?

find . -type f -print | xargs grep <pattern> /dev/null

-- Julie.