Argument List Too Long

Sun, 16 May 2010 11:25:00 +0530

Suppose, there are 1,30,000 files to move from one directory to another, what will happen?

# mv *.txt test

Oh!! There is an error:

mv: Argument list too long.

What to do? Simple answer is to use find command:

# find . -maxdepth 1 -name '*.txt' -exec mv '{}' test \;

Here,

Option	Description
`.`	Defines search directory
`-maxdepth`	Disables recursive search. With `-maxdepth 1` it will only search in current directory
`-name`	String to be searched
`-exec`	Applies a command to set of files that have been searched
`{}`	Inserts each found file into given command after `-exec`
`\;`	Indicates the exec command line has ended

The above example searches for *.txt files in current directory and moves it to the test directory.

bad interpreter: No such file or directory

Sun, 16 May 2010 11:21:00 +0530

Sometimes shell scripts in Linux give this error:

bash: ./t1.sh: /bin/sh^M: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

This happens when files are transferred from a Windows machine to a Linux machine. Different operating systems use different line ending characters:

CR (Carriage Return): Return cursor to left margin, Ctrl-M (^M) or hex 0D LF (Linefeed): Move cursor down, Ctrl-J (^J) or hex 0A