Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:41:26 -0400 (EDT) From: vogelke+unix@pobox.com (Karl Vogel) To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: limit to number of files seen by ls? Message-ID: <20090723174126.9AFF7B7DE@kev.msw.wpafb.af.mil> In-Reply-To: <EACC9988-E37E-4F5F-AC03-8E664E015C3C@identry.com> (message from John Almberg on Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:01:57 -0400)
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
>> On Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:01:57 -0400,
>> John Almberg <jalmberg@identry.com> said:
J> A client has a directory with a big-ish number of jpgs... maybe 4000.
J> Problem is, I can only see 2329 of them with ls, and I'm running into
J> other problems, I think.
J> Question: Is there some limit to the number of files that a directory
J> can contain? Or rather, is there some number where things like ls start
J> working incorrectly?
Every version of Unix I've ever used had an upper limit on the size
of the argument list you could pass to a program, so it won't just be
"ls" that's affected here. That's why I use 1,000 as a rule of thumb
for the maximum number of files I put in a directory.
A longer-term fix for your client would be to break up that JPEG file
list into smaller sets based on (say) date or image topic or whatever.
--
Karl Vogel I don't speak for the USAF or my company
Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
--item for a lull in conversation
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20090723174126.9AFF7B7DE>