on 12/24/02 2:52 PM, Bill Moran <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> From: paul beard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> >> Bill Moran wrote: >>> d/l the entire php documentation as individual html files. >>> This equates to a LOT of files in a single directory (how can >>> I get a count of this?) >>> Anyway, I'm trying to find the docs on some features that >>> the www.php.net's search isn't really helping on (searching >>> for __FILE__ doesn't search for __FILE__ ... it searches for >>> file, and there's too many results) so I try: >>> grep __FILE__ *.html >>> and I get the error: >>> -bash: /usr/bin/grep: Argument list too long >>> Is this a shortcoming of bash, grep or FreeBSD? I'm assuming >>> it's not grep, as the command: >>> find . -name *.html -print | xargs grep __FILE__ >>> yeilds: >>> -bash: /usr/bin/find: Argument list too long >> >> try grep "__FILE__" *.html. > > Makes no difference, I get the same error. > >> to get a file coun, 'ls | wc' might work. > > That helped! I've got >3000 files in that > directory.
The success of the second item maybe gives a clue how to approach the first. Maybe try something like this: ls | grep .html > temp edit temp to insert "grep " at the beginning of each line e.g. in vi use :%s/^/grep __FILE__ / Now temp contains bunch of lines like: grep __FILE__ file1.html grep __FILE__ file2.html grep __FILE__ file3.html Then chmod +x temp and execute it or use temp as input to your desired shell. HTH, Kurt Bigler To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message