Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!cmic!garvey
From: garvey@cmic.UUCP (Joe Garvey)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Is there an easy way around this problem?
Keywords: perl error "Arguments too long", help, please
Message-ID: <237@cmic.UUCP>
Date: 12 Feb 90 01:12:09 GMT
Reply-To: garvey%cmic@mips.com
Organization: Califonia Microwave Inc., Sunnyvale, CA.
Lines: 41

I was in the middle of creating a perl script for archiving off certain files
plucked from the news, when I got the message "Arguments too long". The
directory I was in had several hundred files (I need the disk space back,
so it's time to write our own little news archiving tool). Here is a little
demo script that creates the problem. On small directories, this works great.

---------------------------------------
#!/usr/contrib/bin/perl

$dir = "/users/garvey/tmp/archive/tmp"; 

foreach $afile (<$dir/*>) {
   print ($afile, "\n");
}

exit 0;
--------------------------------------

*** Question ***

Is there an easy way around this? There seems to be a limit built into the
<$dir/*> of about 250 files (no it's not 256). Have I done something wrong?
Why would there be a limit? I'm sure I'm not running out of memory,
and Larry says in the first page of the man-page "Unlike most Unix utilities,
perl does not arbitrarily limit the size of your data -- if you've go the
memory". What gives?

perl -v yeilds:

$Header: perly.c,v 3.0.1.3 89/12/21 20:15:41 lwall Locked $
Patch level: 8

E-mail replies preferred.

--

Joe Garvey                       UUCP: {apple,backbone}!versatc!mips!cmic!garvey
California Microwave             Internet: garvey%cmic@mips.com
990 Almanor Ave                  HP Desk: garvey (cmic@mips.com) /hp1900/ux
Sunnyvale, Ca, 94086             800-831-3104 (outside CA)
408-720-6439 (let it ring)       800-824-7814 (inside CA)