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Full Discussion: Problem with shell script while spaces encountered in directory names
Top Forums UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users Problem with shell script while spaces encountered in directory names Post 302977700 by bakunin on Thursday 21st of July 2016 08:05:01 AM
Old 07-21-2016
Quote:
Originally Posted by Scrutinizer
there are no line length limitations to a for loop, which is part of the shell syntax, so the limitations of passing parameters to a subprocess do not apply
Yes - and No: the maximum number of passed arguments will not apply but the maximum line length will. Suppose you have a line like:

Code:
for x in * [; do ....]

and you execute that in a directory with really many files, it will first be expanded by the shell to:

Code:
for x in fileA fileB fileC [...]

and if the really many filenames make this line too long for the shells input parser to fathom you will be in deep kimchi. I give you that: some shells don't care for system constants like "LINE_MAX", but as far as i know a POSIXly correct utility has only to be able to digest lines up to that length. Above that all bets are off. So, if you want to stay on the safe side you better do not require something that is optional in the standards.

From /usr/include/sys/limits.h on a rather up-to-date AIX 7.1-system:

Code:
/* The system supports the following utility limit minimum values */

#define _POSIX2_BC_BASE_MAX     99   /* max ibase and obase values for bc     */
#define _POSIX2_BC_DIM_MAX      2048 /* max num elements in array for bc      */
#define _POSIX2_BC_SCALE_MAX    99   /* max scale value allowed by bc         */
#define _POSIX2_BC_STRING_MAX   1000 /* max len of string constant by bc      */
#define _POSIX2_EQUIV_CLASS_MAX 2    /* this define is obsolete               */
#define _POSIX2_COLL_WEIGHTS_MAX 2   /* max num weight for LC_COLLATE order   */
#define _POSIX2_EXPR_NEST_MAX   32   /* max num expression nested for expr    */
#define _POSIX2_LINE_MAX        2048 /* max len of utility input line         */
#define _POSIX2_RE_DUP_MAX      255  /* max num repeated reg for interval not */

I hope this helps.

bakunin
 

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LEARN ABOUT DEBIAN

odmgr

ODMGR(1)						      Quick Database Manager							  ODMGR(1)

NAME

       odmgr - administration utility for QDBM Odeum

SYNOPSIS

       odmgr create name
       odmgr put [-uri str] [-title str] [-author str] [-date str] [-wmax num] [-keep] name [file]
       odmgr out [-id] name expr
       odmgr get [-id] [-t|-h] name expr
       odmgr search [-max num] [-or] [-idf] [-t|-h|-n] name words...
       odmgr list [-t|-h] name
       odmgr optimize name
       odmgr inform name
       odmgr merge name elems...
       odmgr remove name
       odmgr break [-h|-k|-s] [file]
       odmgr version

DESCRIPTION

       This manual page documents briefly the odmgr commands.

       odmgr  is  a utility for debugging Odeum and its applications. It features editing and checking of a database. It can be used for full-text
       search systems with shell scripts. This command is used in the above format. name specifies a database name. file specifies  a  file  name,
       expr specifies the URI or the ID number of a document, words specifies searching words. elems specifies element databases.

OPTIONS

       A summary of options is included below.	For a complete description, see the file:///usr/share/doc/qdbm-doc/spex.html#odeumcli .

       -uri   specify the URI of the document explicitly.

       -title str
	      specify the title of the document.

       -author str
	      specify the author of the document.

       -date str
	      specify the modified date of the document.

       -wmax num
	      specify the max number of words to be stored.

       -keep  the storing mode is not to be overwrite.

       -id    specify a document not by a URI but by an ID number.

       -t     output the details of a document in tab separated format.

       -h     output the details of a document in human-readable format.

       -k     output keywords of a document.

       -s     output summary of a document.

       -max num
	      specify the max number of documents of the output.

       -or    perform OR search, nut AND search.

       -idf   tune scores with IDF.

       -n     show ID numbers and scores only.

SEE ALSO

       qdbm(3), odidx(1), odeum(3).  odopen(3).

AUTHOR

       QDBM was written by Mikio Hirabayashi <mikio@fallabs.com>.

       This manual page was written by Fumitoshi UKAI <ukai@debian.or.jp>, for the Debian project (but may be used by others).

Man Page							    2005-05-23								  ODMGR(1)
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