Xref: utzoo comp.sources.bugs:2390 comp.unix.xenix:11469
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!cpoint!frog!john
From: john@frog.UUCP (John Woods)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.bugs,comp.unix.xenix
Subject: Re: Pathalias Problem
Message-ID: <14670@frog.UUCP>
Date: 9 May 90 22:03:00 GMT
References: <6145@ucrmath.UCR.EDU>
Followup-To: comp.unix.xenix
Distribution: usa
Organization: Misanthropes-R-Us
Lines: 20

In article <6145@ucrmath.UCR.EDU>, gumby@ucrmath.UCR.EDU (john donahue) writes:
> My site just received some more map files in "comp.mail.maps"
> last night and suddenly, pathalias no longer works. It is now complaining
> that the argument list of files is too long. There are now 178 files in
> my "/usr/spool/uucp/Maps" directory and when a shell script called
> "/usr/lib/uucp/uugetmaps" is executed, pathalias is run with:
> /usr/lib/uucp/pathalias -i /usr/spool/uucp/Maps/* > /tmp/paths
> It complains that the "arg list too long" and terminates.

That complaint is presumably from the shell which finds that it cannot
build a sufficiently small argument list (exec() limits the size of the
combined environment/argument area).  The only long-term fix is an operating
system version with a higher limit (or no limit, preferably);  for the
short (and probably permanent) term, you could preprocess the files with
something like "cat d.* > D ; cat u.* > U; /usr/lib/uucp/pathalias -i D U"
(elaborate as necessary), or even "(cat d.* ; cat u.*) | pathalias -i".
As the pool of u.* files grows, you'll probably have to split them up also.
-- 
John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (508) 626-1101
...!decvax!frog!john, john@frog.UUCP, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw@eddie.mit.edu