UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello Unix Gurus,
I am new to Unix so need some help on this.

I am using the following commands:

1) mv -f Inputpath/*.[Pp][Dd][Ff] outputpath

2) cp Inputpath/*.[Pp][Dd][Ff] outputpath


3) rm -rf somepath/*

4) Find Inputpath/*.[Pp][Dd][Ff]

Now I get the following error with the Find command above :

Code:

/bin/ksh: /usr/bin/find: 0403-027 The parameter list is too long

This is happening because there are large number of files which the Find command has to process.

I am also thinking i may get the same type of error with other unix commands above.

So my question is How do i rewrite each of these commands to overcome this issue with large amount of files.


Any Help on this is Appreciated.

Thanks,

This can be avoided with a for loop. For example:

Code:

for file in Inputpath/*.[Pp][Dd][Ff]
do
  cp "$file" outputpath
done

Hi Scrutinizer ,
Thanks for your Reply.Actually is ther a way do rewrite each of the commands i mentioned without using a FOR LOOP.I use these commands in a SAS Program so i require to use them as a single line command.Is it possible to use FIND command with some options to rewrite each of the commands and also overcome the issue with large number of files.

Thanks,

Single line? Like so?

Code:

for file in Inputpath/*.[Pp][Dd][Ff]; do cp "$file" outputpath; done

Given the large number of files being copied, moved, ..., I would try the following first:

Code:

cd Inputpath;cp *.[Pp][Dd][Ff] ../outputpath;cd ..

Reducing the length of the filename arguments may be enough to avoid the {ARG_MAX} limits while keeping the number of invocations of cp (or the other utilities) to a minimum.

Hi, yes that was my thought as well, but I figured I'd provide a solution that should work in any case...

Actually, for find the solution is much simpler. Rather than using:

Code:

find Inputpath/*.[Pp][Dd][Ff] ...

use:

Code:

find Inputpath -name '*.[Pp][Dd][Ff]' ...

Rooting a find search in a very long list of regular files (instead of in a list of a small number of directories) frequently defeats the purpose of using find in the first place.