chmod gives unclear "Argument list too long" when chmodding '*' in a very full directory
Bug #624271 reported by
Vallery Lancey
This bug affects 1 person
| Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| coreutils (Ubuntu) |
Invalid
|
Low
|
Unassigned | ||
Bug Description
Binary package hint: coreutils
Running the following in a directory of 5000 files causes chmod to give the unclear error in the title.
sudo chmod a+r -R *
The command failing makes sense. It is being passed 5000 files and their full paths. However, the error did NOT make sense, because it made it sound like there were literally too many characters in the command.
Revision history for this message
| C de-Avillez (hggdh2) wrote | #1 |
| Changed in coreutils (Ubuntu): | |
| importance: | Undecided → Low |
| status: | New → Incomplete |
Revision history for this message
| C de-Avillez (hggdh2) wrote | #2 |
| Changed in coreutils (Ubuntu): | |
| status: | Incomplete → Invalid |
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Thank you for opening this bug and helping make Ubuntu better. This is not an error on (or even reported by) coreutils: this is a messages issued by your shell. And the error indeed literally means there are too many characters in the command (and the shell cancels the command execution).
I am not sure what you would like to change here. Can you please explain?