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Full Discussion: Arg list too long
Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers Arg list too long Post 302764501 by Don Cragun on Thursday 31st of January 2013 02:45:24 PM
Old 01-31-2013
I assume that bipinajith's proposed solution will still fail because /app/folder1/* is expanding to a list of arguments too long to process. The following should avoid that problem and be MUCH more efficient:
Code:
find /app/folder1 -name '*.dat' -type f -exec grep '.sh' {} +

Note, however, that if your .dat files are binary files (rather than text files) grep might not work. (The standards only specify the behavior of grep when its input files are text files.)

Also note that if grep is called with only one file operand, the name of the file in which the line is found will not be printed; just the contents of the matching line. If your .dat files are text files and you want the name of the file to be printed as well as the matched lines even if there is only one file operand, add /dev/null as another file operand. If you only want the names of matching files, but don't need to see the matched lines use the -l (letter ell; not digit 1) option.

And note that the pattern specified by '.sh' is a basic regular expression will match the two characters sh as long as they are not the 1st two characters on a line. If you want to match the three characters .sh, you need to add the -F option, use the obsolescent fgrep utility instead of grep, or escape the period in the BRE.
 

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fgrep(1)							   User Commands							  fgrep(1)

NAME
fgrep - search a file for a fixed-character string SYNOPSIS
/usr/bin/fgrep [-bchilnsvx] [-e pattern_list] [-f pattern-file] [pattern] [file...] /usr/xpg4/bin/fgrep [-bchilnsvx] [-e pattern_list] [-f pattern-file] [pattern] [file...] DESCRIPTION
The fgrep (fast grep) utility searches files for a character string and prints all lines that contain that string. fgrep is different from grep(1) and from egrep(1) because it searches for a string, instead of searching for a pattern that matches an expression. fgrep uses a fast and compact algorithm. The characters $, *, [, ^, |, (, ), and are interpreted literally by fgrep, that is, fgrep does not recognize full regular expressions as does egrep. These characters have special meaning to the shell. Therefore, to be safe, enclose the entire string within single quotes ('). If no files are specified, fgrep assumes standard input. Normally, each line that is found is copied to the standard output. The file name is printed before each line that is found if there is more than one input file. OPTIONS
The following options are supported: -b Precedes each line by the block number on which the line was found. This can be useful in locating block numbers by con- text. The first block is 0. -c Prints only a count of the lines that contain the pattern. -e pattern_list Searches for a string in pattern-list. This is useful when the string begins with a -. -f pattern-file Takes the list of patterns from pattern-file. -h Suppresses printing of files when searching multiple files. -i Ignores upper/lower case distinction during comparisons. -l Prints the names of files with matching lines once, separated by new-lines. Does not repeat the names of files when the pattern is found more than once. -n Precedes each line by its line number in the file. The first line is 1. -s Works silently, that is, displays nothing except error messages. This is useful for checking the error status. -v Prints all lines except those that contain the pattern. -x Prints only lines that are matched entirely. OPERANDS
The following operands are supported: file Specifies a path name of a file to be searched for the patterns. If no file operands are specified, the standard input will be used. /usr/bin/fgrep pattern Specifies a pattern to be used during the search for input. /usr/xpg4/bin/fgrep pattern Specifies one or more patterns to be used during the search for input. This operand is treated as if it were specified as -e pattern_list. USAGE
See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of fgrep when encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2**31 bytes). ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables that affect the execution of fgrep: LC_COLLATE, LC_CTYPE, LC_MES- SAGES, and NLSPATH. EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned: 0 If any matches are found 1 If no matches are found 2 For syntax errors or inaccessible files, even if matches were found. ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes: /usr/bin/fgrep +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |Availability |SUNWcsu | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ /usr/xpg4/bin/fgrep +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |Availability |SUNWxcu4 | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |CSI |Enabled | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ SEE ALSO
ed(1), egrep(1), grep(1), sed(1), sh(1), attributes(5), environ(5), largefile(5), XPG4(5) NOTES
Ideally, there should be only one grep command, but there is not a single algorithm that spans a wide enough range of space-time tradeoffs. Lines are limited only by the size of the available virtual memory. /usr/xpg4/bin/fgrep The /usr/xpg4/bin/fgrep utility is identical to /usr/xpg4/bin/grep -F (see grep(1)). Portable applications should use /usr/xpg4/bin/grep -F. SunOS 5.10 4 Oct 2002 fgrep(1)
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