[techtalk] Limits of grep?

[Subba Rao]

On  0, Julie <jockgrrl at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> 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,

Thank you for replying. I tried the following solution and it works very fast.

find <path> -print | xargs -n 500 grep <pattern>

Using the "-type f" is a very good idea.

Thanks to everyone who replied with some solution!

-- 

Subba Rao
subb3 at attglobal.net
http://pws.prserv.net/truemax/