From owner-freebsd-stable  Sat Mar 17 16:27:47 2001
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Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 16:27:28 -0800 (PST)
From: Matt Dillon <dillon@earth.backplane.com>
Message-Id: <200103180027.f2I0RSn96769@earth.backplane.com>
To: Jonathan Lemon <jlemon@flugsvamp.com>
Cc: stable@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Not only ftpd's problem with ls */../*..... 
References: <local.mail.freebsd-stable/200103172107.f2HL7Ea02611@cwsys.cwsent.com> <200103172253.f2HMrZ008412@prism.flugsvamp.com>
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:Yes, I'm considering the following:
:
:	gl_flags |= GLOB_MAXFILES
:	gl_match = filemax
:
:Since gl_match is only used as an input parameter at the moment.
:Another approach is to limit the number of bytes returned to ARG_MAX,
:but I somewhat dislike that; it makes more sense to me to specify the
:number of paths instead.
:--
:Jonathan

    Hmm.  Well, I like the idea of adding a flag to glob_t->flags but I
    would prefer not to add another element to the glob_t structure
    that would make it incompatible with existing programs.  Remember the
    mess changing FILE caused.

    How about a combination of glob_t->flags and a global limit that can
    be set with a new api call, setgloblimit()?   Or perhaps even just
    have the setgloblimit() API call and don't even bother with a new flag.

    int setgloblimit(int)

	Set the maximum number of (bytes? entries?) that will be allocated
	to fullfill a globing call.  The previous setting is returned.  A
	value of -1 indicates unlimited.  The default is unlimited.

    Just having a plain old setgloblimit() call with nothing else (no flags,
    etc...) would be the most compatible solution.

    Remember when csh had an arbitrarily limit on command line length?
    Things like 'foreach i ( `find . -type f` )' would fail arbitrarily.
    Tcsh fixed that problem.  Whatever we do, we do not want to reintroduce
    this same sort of problem in other programs (whether shells do their own
    globing or not).

						-Matt


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