Re: Finding command size; was Re: FIX for Arg list too long...

[Robert Boehne]

Howard Chu wrote:
> 
> Robert Boehne wrote:
> 
> > To all Gurus:
> 
> > Ok, I'm currently working on the implementation of a fix
> > for "Arg list too long" errors, but I wonder if anyone
> > could give me advice on how to get the size of the
> > command that will be used.  How about this:
> 
> > length=`echo ${some_command} | dd bs=1 of=/dev/null 2>&1 | head -1 | cut
> > -d'+' -f1`
> 
> 
> Try
>   length=`expr ${some_command} : ".*"`
> 
> Of course, when some_command gets too long, it all falls apart. There's no
> way around that.

I also found this method in a bourne shell book, but how does it work?
I've been having a difficult time turning "$archive_cmds" into the
length
of the expanded command as it would get executed.  So far, I have
  new_cmd=`eval echo $archive_cmds`
which gives me the expanded command, but I can't seem to get
the length of this command.
  If I use  length=`expr ${some_command} : ".*"`  then what will the
error be when the command is too long?  Any other ideas?


-- 
Robert Boehne             Software Engineer
Ricardo Software   Chicago Technical Center
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