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arg list too long when trying to tar files

 
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# 1  
Old 05-02-2006
arg list too long when trying to tar files
Hi,
I am trying to perform this task:
tar -cvf tar.newfile ??????.bas
I got error "arg list too long". Is ther any way around? I have about 1500 file need to be tar together.

Thanks in advance
# 2  
Old 05-02-2006
I'm guessing you're on AIX -- I've run into this problem on numerous occasions. The tar command should have a "-I include-file" option which lists file names one per line. Of course, you'll hit the same argument limit with ls, so populate the file with find....

Code:
# find . -type f -name "*.bas" > include-file
# tar -I include-file -cvf newfile.tar

Or, you can move the lot into a subdirectory ./bas and just tar that.

Code:
# tar -cvf newfile.tar bas

Good luck!
# 3  
Old 05-03-2006
MySQL
Thanks hegemaro.
The socend one is work perfect for me.
For the second one, I don't have -I option however I have -L does same thing.
So both are work perfect.
Thank you so much
# 4  
Old 05-03-2006
You're most welcome. The manual pages used when I posted where for Solaris. Now that I'm at work, I can see it is -L for AIX. Sorry for any confusion.
# 5  
Old 05-03-2006
No problem at all.
Thanks for all your help. Now I am posing another question hope you can help me as well -- a new post.
Thx
# 6  
Old 07-17-2006
Bug
I have found the same problem with tar showing too long arguments than I break up the command into two which are as follows :

find . -type f -name "*.bas" > include-file
tar -cvf newfile.tar -I include-file

this worked and my problem get sorted.

Cheers!

Prashant Singh.
 
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