Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu!karl
From: karl@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.att
Subject: Re: Runaway newsfiles break ls
Message-ID: <KARL.89Mar1104333@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 1 Mar 89 15:43:33 GMT
References: <629@mccc.UUCP>
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Distribution: usa
Organization: OSU
Lines: 23
In-reply-to: pjh@mccc.UUCP's message of 1 Mar 89 00:19:29 GMT

pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes:
   I have so many .ara????, .arb????, .ina????? and .inb??? in
   /usr2/spool/news that any command that uses metacharacters returns with
   the "too many arguments" message, and ls runs out of memory and dumps core!
   How can I either process these or get rid of them?

# for i in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
> do
>   for j in ar in
>   do
>     for k in a b
>     do
>       rm .$j$k*$i
>     done
>   done
> done

That should give it to the shell in metachar-manageable pieces.  But
don't expect it to be fast.

If not, there's always "rm -fr ..."

--Karl