Getting parameter list is too long in grep command


 
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# 1  
Old 01-13-2015
Getting parameter list is too long in grep command

Hi

i am getting below message while using grep command
"The parameter list is too long"

Code:
 
 grep -i 919716499889 *
ksh: /usr/bin/grep: 0403-027 The parameter list is too long.

please let me know what changes i can do in this command
# 2  
Old 01-13-2015
Hello scriptor,

Could you please try following and let us know if this helps.
Code:
find -type f -exec grep -il "919716499889" {} \;

So it should show the files which has this text.

Thanks,
R. Singh
# 3  
Old 01-13-2015
You might want to consider putting \+ instead of \; for faster processing.

Regards
Peasant.
# 4  
Old 01-13-2015
If there are subdirectories, this might give you results from those files as well. Consider adding the -prune option to the above suggestion if that is an issue.


Another alternative would be:-
Code:
ls -1 | xargs -n10 grep "919716499889" /dev/null

  • The -i flag is redundant as that treats upper & lower case letters the same, and you are searching for numbers only.
  • The /dev/null in the command ensures that if there is only one file being searched, there will still be output for the file name.

Robin

Last edited by rbatte1; 01-13-2015 at 06:40 AM..
# 5  
Old 01-14-2015
thx robin your command was working.

Ravindra- the command which you have suggested is now working
Code:
 
find -type f -exec grep -il "919716499889" {} \;
Usage: find [-H | -L] Path-list [Expression-list]

also i have one more question
below command is working is some machine and not working in some machine.
can you please tell me why same command is behaving in 2 different manner.
although both machine is having same os and version

Code:
 
grep -i 919716499889 *

# 6  
Old 01-14-2015
It all depends on how may files are in the current directory. The * on the command line is expanded to names them all before the command is actually run. If there are lots, then it becomes huge and exceeds the allowed command length resulting in the error you see.


Robin
 
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