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From: nrf@cbnewsh.att.com (neal.r.fildes)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc
Subject: Re: Arg list too long error?  Here's a work-around.
Message-ID: <1990Nov16.193302.7410@cbnewsh.att.com>
Date: 16 Nov 90 19:33:02 GMT
References: <1990Nov16.041546.12798@druid.uucp>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 12

> In article <1990Nov16.001140.11923@druid.uucp>
>>ls | grep '^SRW' | while read X
>>do rm $X
>>done
> 

I would recommend the xargs(1) command for such things. it saves fork/exec's
e.g.

ls | grep '^SRW' | xargs rm

xargs bunches up a number of arguments into one fork/exec!