[gentoo-user] Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[gentoo-user] Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[Grant]

My crontab deletes all files of a certain type in a certain folder
with yesterday's date in the filename.  It usually executes but
sometimes fails with:

/bin/rm: Argument list too long

What would you do about this?

- Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Grant.

On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 12:32:42PM -0700, Grant wrote:
> My crontab deletes all files of a certain type in a certain folder
> with yesterday's date in the filename.  It usually executes but
> sometimes fails with:

> /bin/rm: Argument list too long

> What would you do about this?

Use xargs - in place of
    /bin/rm lots of files ......

Use
   Lots_of_file_names | xargs rm

.  xargs then calls rm several times with batches of filenames each time.
xargs is a standard Unix command.

> - Grant

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[victor romanchuk]

it could be slightly less efficient comparing to plain `rm', but worked around
your problem:

find <your-dir> -ctime -1 -exec rm {} \;

basically `find' has a lot options filtering result set. these include
time/date, file name  (regexp), file type and so on. consult man for details

victor


Grant wrote, at 07/17/2011 11:32 PM:
> My crontab deletes all files of a certain type in a certain folder
> with yesterday's date in the filename.  It usually executes but
> sometimes fails with:
>
> /bin/rm: Argument list too long
>
> What would you do about this?
>
> - Grant
>

Re: [gentoo-user] Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[David W Noon]

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On Sun, 17 Jul 2011 12:32:42 -0700, Grant wrote about [gentoo-user] Any
way around "Argument list too long"?:

> My crontab deletes all files of a certain type in a certain folder
> with yesterday's date in the filename.  It usually executes but
> sometimes fails with:
> 
> /bin/rm: Argument list too long
> 
> What would you do about this?

Use find with the -delete option.
-- 
Regards,

Dave  [RLU #314465]
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
dwnoon@ntlworld.com (David W Noon)
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

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RE: [gentoo-user] Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[Pandu Poluan]

-original message-
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Any way around "Argument list too long"?
From: Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>
Date: 2011-07-18 02:42

>Hi, Grant.
>
>On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 12:32:42PM -0700, Grant wrote:
>> My crontab deletes all files of a certain type in a certain folder
>> with yesterday's date in the filename.  It usually executes but
>> sometimes fails with:
>
>> /bin/rm: Argument list too long
>
>> What would you do about this?
>
>Use xargs - in place of
>    /bin/rm lots of files ......
>
>Use
>   Lots_of_file_names | xargs rm
>
>.  xargs then calls rm several times with batches of filenames each time.
>xargs is a standard Unix command.

You'll want to be extra careful with special characters like (space), single quote, and double quote.

Better use find ..... -exec rm {} +

See: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xargs


Rgds,
--
FdS Pandu E Poluan
~ IT Optimizer ~

Sent from Nokia E72-1

Re: [gentoo-user] Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[Alan McKinnon]

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Are you using wildcards in the arguments to rm ?

Rather use find | xargs or find -exec which are designed to deal with
exactly this circumstance.

On 17 Jul 2011 9:32 PM, "Grant" <emailgrant@gmail.com> wrote:

My crontab deletes all files of a certain type in a certain folder
with yesterday's date in the filename.  It usually executes but
sometimes fails with:

/bin/rm: Argument list too long

What would you do about this?

- Grant

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Re: [gentoo-user] Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[Michael Mol]

On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 3:54 PM, Pandu Poluan <pandu@poluan.info> wrote:
> -original message-
> Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Any way around "Argument list too long"?
> From: Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>
> Date: 2011-07-18 02:42
>
>>Hi, Grant.
>>
>>On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 12:32:42PM -0700, Grant wrote:
>>> My crontab deletes all files of a certain type in a certain folder
>>> with yesterday's date in the filename.  It usually executes but
>>> sometimes fails with:
>>
>>> /bin/rm: Argument list too long
>>
>>> What would you do about this?
>>
>>Use xargs - in place of
>>    /bin/rm lots of files ......
>>
>>Use
>>   Lots_of_file_names | xargs rm
>>
>>.  xargs then calls rm several times with batches of filenames each time.
>>xargs is a standard Unix command.
>
> You'll want to be extra careful with special characters like (space), single quote, and double quote.
>
> Better use find ..... -exec rm {} +
>

This is why I use 'find' with the -print0 parameter.

find (path) (filespec) -print0|xargs -0 command

-- 
:wq

[gentoo-user] Re: Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[walt]

On 07/17/2011 02:14 PM, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> Are you using wildcards in the arguments to rm ?
> 
> Rather use find | xargs or find -exec which are designed to deal with
> exactly this circumstance.
> 
>> On 17 Jul 2011 9:32 PM, "Grant" <emailgrant@gmail.com
>> <mailto:emailgrant@gmail.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> My crontab deletes all files of a certain type in a certain folder

Okay, everyone, back away slowly from this post and then delete it
from your cache.  The *real* Alan McKinnon does not top post.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[Mick]

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On Sunday 17 Jul 2011 23:06:32 walt wrote:
> On 07/17/2011 02:14 PM, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > Are you using wildcards in the arguments to rm ?
> > 
> > Rather use find | xargs or find -exec which are designed to deal with
> > exactly this circumstance.
> > 
> >> On 17 Jul 2011 9:32 PM, "Grant" <emailgrant@gmail.com
> >> <mailto:emailgrant@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >> 
> >> My crontab deletes all files of a certain type in a certain folder
> 
> Okay, everyone, back away slowly from this post and then delete it
> from your cache.  The *real* Alan McKinnon does not top post.

Ha, ha!  Nor does he use HTML formatting in his messages!  o_O

Hmm ... New smartphone or something similar which he hadn't time to hack yet?
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 17 July 2011 15:06:32 walt did opine thusly:
> On 07/17/2011 02:14 PM, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > Are you using wildcards in the arguments to rm ?
> > 
> > Rather use find | xargs or find -exec which are designed to deal
> > with exactly this circumstance.
> > 
> >> On 17 Jul 2011 9:32 PM, "Grant" <emailgrant@gmail.com
> >> <mailto:emailgrant@gmail.com>> wrote:
> >> 
> >> My crontab deletes all files of a certain type in a certain
> >> folder
> 
> Okay, everyone, back away slowly from this post and then delete it
> from your cache.  The *real* Alan McKinnon does not top post.

He does when his ADSL modem craps out and he's forced to use the GMail 
app thingamajigy on his Android phone :-)

Note to self: Put K-9 Mail back on phone for just in case moments like 
this.



-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 00:35:42 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> > Okay, everyone, back away slowly from this post and then delete it
> > from your cache.  The *real* Alan McKinnon does not top post.  
> 
> He does when his ADSL modem craps out and he's forced to use the GMail 
> app thingamajigy on his Android phone :-)

I'd rather tether my netbook to my phone and stick with real email :)

I hope your employer has better redundancy that you do ;-)


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Earlier, I didn't have time to finish anything. This time I w

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Re: [gentoo-user] Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[Grant]

> way around "Argument list too long"?:
>
>> My crontab deletes all files of a certain type in a certain folder
>> with yesterday's date in the filename.  It usually executes but
>> sometimes fails with:
>>
>> /bin/rm: Argument list too long
>>
>> What would you do about this?
>
> Use find with the -delete option.

I'm getting the same thing from find:

$ /usr/bin/find /home/user/*-`/bin/date -d 'yesterday' +\%Y\%m\%d`*.jpg
/usr/bin/find: Argument list too long

$ /usr/bin/find -delete /home/user/*-`/bin/date -d 'yesterday' +\%Y\%m\%d`*.jpg
/usr/bin/find: Argument list too long

$ /usr/bin/find /home/user/*-`/bin/date -d 'yesterday' +\%Y\%m\%d`*.jpg|xargs rm
/usr/bin/find: Argument list too long
rm: missing operand
Try `rm --help' for more information.

- Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[Michael Mol]

On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 7:23 PM, Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm getting the same thing from find:
>
> $ /usr/bin/find /home/user/*-`/bin/date -d 'yesterday' +\%Y\%m\%d`*.jpg
> /usr/bin/find: Argument list too long

You're using find wrong; the first argument needs to be the root path
it starts searching from. To find files matching a particular name or
pattern, try using -name or -iname.

DATE=$(/bin/date -d 'yesterday' +\%Y\%m\%d)
find /home/user -name '*-$DATE'

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sunday 17 July 2011 16:23:54 Grant did opine thusly:
> > way around "Argument list too long"?:
> >> My crontab deletes all files of a certain type in a certain
> >> folder with yesterday's date in the filename.  It usually
> >> executes but sometimes fails with:
> >> 
> >> /bin/rm: Argument list too long
> >> 
> >> What would you do about this?
> > 
> > Use find with the -delete option.
> 
> I'm getting the same thing from find:
> 
> $ /usr/bin/find /home/user/*-`/bin/date -d 'yesterday'
> +\%Y\%m\%d`*.jpg /usr/bin/find: Argument list too long
> 
> $ /usr/bin/find -delete /home/user/*-`/bin/date -d 'yesterday'
> +\%Y\%m\%d`*.jpg /usr/bin/find: Argument list too long
> 
> $ /usr/bin/find /home/user/*-`/bin/date -d 'yesterday'
> +\%Y\%m\%d`*.jpg|xargs rm /usr/bin/find: Argument list too long
> rm: missing operand
> Try `rm --help' for more information.

You are doing it wrong.

Each command has something between ``, so bash is expanding that 
entire list and just before feeding the whole lot to find, realizes 
that the list is longer than 65,536 characters. It's bash that is 
returning that error, not find.

You're mistake is trying to marrow down *where* find should look 
instead of *what* it should look for.

You something like this:

find /home/user -type f -name "`/bin/date -d 'yesterday' 
+\%Y\%m\%d`*.jpg`"

See the difference? That will not produce a gigantic command line, it 
will produce a rather short one and find will check each file it finds 
one by one and see if it's name matches the supplied pattern.

Word of warning: DO NOT blindly run -delete on this, first check the 
total output and make sure it only has what you want to delete. As 
with all things concerning rm or file deletion, the burden rests on 
you to make completely sure you delete only what you want to delete.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 18 July 2011 00:16:40 Neil Bothwick did opine thusly:
> On Mon, 18 Jul 2011 00:35:42 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> > > Okay, everyone, back away slowly from this post and then
> > > delete it from your cache.  The *real* Alan McKinnon does
> > > not top post.
> > 
> > He does when his ADSL modem craps out and he's forced to use the
> > GMail app thingamajigy on his Android phone :-)
> 
> I'd rather tether my netbook to my phone and stick with real email
> :)

My old G1 is stuck on Donut :-(
Everything from Eclair onwards just kills the poor thing, and 
tethering never worked reliably.

> I hope your employer has better redundancy that you do ;-)

Of course :-) Everything on the core network is at least duplicated.

As for us plebs at home, our usual backup is the 3G card but between 
one team member crashing a motorbike badly, another (me) crashing a 
motorbike poorly, one off sick with flu, one transferred to another 
team, and everyone at home without petrol (fuel and metal workers 
strike ... please don't ask), none of us remember where the damn card 
is anymore.

The other redundancy is the back up modem, which I have never needed 
to use and now suffers from a bad case of electron-rot. OK, it's 
probably electrolytic caps deteriorated from heat, but electron rot 
sounds much more dramatic ;-)

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

Re: [gentoo-user] Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[Grant]

> You are doing it wrong.
>
> Each command has something between ``, so bash is expanding that
> entire list and just before feeding the whole lot to find, realizes
> that the list is longer than 65,536 characters. It's bash that is
> returning that error, not find.
>
> You're mistake is trying to marrow down *where* find should look
> instead of *what* it should look for.
>
> You something like this:
>
> find /home/user -type f -name "`/bin/date -d 'yesterday'
> +\%Y\%m\%d`*.jpg`"
>
> See the difference? That will not produce a gigantic command line, it
> will produce a rather short one and find will check each file it finds
> one by one and see if it's name matches the supplied pattern.
>
> Word of warning: DO NOT blindly run -delete on this, first check the
> total output and make sure it only has what you want to delete. As
> with all things concerning rm or file deletion, the burden rests on
> you to make completely sure you delete only what you want to delete.

I ran this and the output was voluminous but looked good:

/usr/bin/find /home/user -type f -name "*-`/bin/date -d 'yesterday'
+\%Y\%m\%d`*.jpg"

So I ran it again, adding -delete right before -type.  After a lot of
processing I got a line of output like this for each file:

/usr/bin/find: `/home/user/1-2011071612345.jpg': No such file or directory

Unfortunately the command actually deleted the entire /home/user
folder.  Can anyone tell me what went wrong?  Maybe '/home/user' was
at the very top of the long list that scrolled up the screen when I
ran the find command without -delete?

- Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[Albert Hopkins]

On Sunday, July 17 at 17:47 (-0700), Grant said:

> ran this and the output was voluminous but looked good:
> 
> /usr/bin/find /home/user -type f -name "*-`/bin/date -d 'yesterday'
> +\%Y\%m\%d`*.jpg"
> 
> So I ran it again, adding -delete right before -type.  After a lot of
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

That was a mistake.

> processing I got a line of output like this for each file:
> 
> /usr/bin/find: `/home/user/1-2011071612345.jpg': No such file or
> directory
> 
> Unfortunately the command actually deleted the entire /home/user
> folder.  Can anyone tell me what went wrong?  Maybe '/home/user' was
> at the very top of the long list that scrolled up the screen when I
> ran the find command without -delete?
> 
Well this is an unfortunate way to learn how find works.  A better way
would be:

$ man find

Basically find works of a chain of selection criteria.  It crawls all
the files/dirs and when one item in the chain is true for the criteria,
it checks for the other.  For example

$ find /path -type f -name blah -print

Crawls /path, for each file/dir it checks if it is a regular file (-type
f), if that is true, it checks if it's name is "blah", if that is true,
it prints the name (blah).

Therefore, 

$ find /path -delete -type f -name ....

Crawls path, then checks "-delete".. but wait, -delete evaluates to
"true if removal succeeded" (find(1)), so it deletes the file, then
checks to see if it is a regular file, then if that is true then it
checks the name... but all that doesn't matter because your files are
deleted.

You should never put -delete at the beginning of a chain and, arguably,
you shouldn't use -delete at all.  It even says in the man page:

        Warnings:  Don't  forget that the find command line is evaluated
        as an expression, so putting -delete first will make find try to
        delete everything below the starting points you specified.  When
        testing a find command line that you later intend  to  use  with
        -delete,  you should explicitly specify -depth in order to avoid
        later surprises.  Because -delete  implies  -depth,  you  cannot
        usefully use -prune and -delete together.

Re: [gentoo-user] Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[Grant]

>> ran this and the output was voluminous but looked good:
>>
>> /usr/bin/find /home/user -type f -name "*-`/bin/date -d 'yesterday'
>> +\%Y\%m\%d`*.jpg"
>>
>> So I ran it again, adding -delete right before -type.  After a lot of
>  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> That was a mistake.
>
>> processing I got a line of output like this for each file:
>>
>> /usr/bin/find: `/home/user/1-2011071612345.jpg': No such file or
>> directory
>>
>> Unfortunately the command actually deleted the entire /home/user
>> folder.  Can anyone tell me what went wrong?  Maybe '/home/user' was
>> at the very top of the long list that scrolled up the screen when I
>> ran the find command without -delete?
>>
> Well this is an unfortunate way to learn how find works.  A better way
> would be:
>
> $ man find
>
> Basically find works of a chain of selection criteria.  It crawls all
> the files/dirs and when one item in the chain is true for the criteria,
> it checks for the other.  For example
>
> $ find /path -type f -name blah -print
>
> Crawls /path, for each file/dir it checks if it is a regular file (-type
> f), if that is true, it checks if it's name is "blah", if that is true,
> it prints the name (blah).
>
> Therefore,
>
> $ find /path -delete -type f -name ....
>
> Crawls path, then checks "-delete".. but wait, -delete evaluates to
> "true if removal succeeded" (find(1)), so it deletes the file, then
> checks to see if it is a regular file, then if that is true then it
> checks the name... but all that doesn't matter because your files are
> deleted.
>
> You should never put -delete at the beginning of a chain and, arguably,
> you shouldn't use -delete at all.  It even says in the man page:
>
>        Warnings:  Don't  forget that the find command line is evaluated
>        as an expression, so putting -delete first will make find try to
>        delete everything below the starting points you specified.  When
>        testing a find command line that you later intend  to  use  with
>        -delete,  you should explicitly specify -depth in order to avoid
>        later surprises.  Because -delete  implies  -depth,  you  cannot
>        usefully use -prune and -delete together.

Alright, find is tricky.  Is this the right spot for -delete?

/usr/bin/find /home/user -type f -name "*-`/bin/date -d 'yesterday'
+\%Y\%m\%d`*.jpg" - delete

- Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sun, 17 Jul 2011 18:40:44 -0700, Grant wrote:

> Alright, find is tricky.  Is this the right spot for -delete?
> 
> /usr/bin/find /home/user -type f -name "*-`/bin/date -d 'yesterday'
> +\%Y\%m\%d`*.jpg" - delete

Yes, but if you don't want irreversible mistakes, move the files instead.

find /home/user -type f -name blah -exec mv -t ~/.Trashcan "{}" +


-- 
Neil Bothwick

The facts, although interesting, are usually irrelevant.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[Grant]

>> Alright, find is tricky.  Is this the right spot for -delete?
>>
>> /usr/bin/find /home/user -type f -name "*-`/bin/date -d 'yesterday'
>> +\%Y\%m\%d`*.jpg" - delete
>
> Yes, but if you don't want irreversible mistakes, move the files instead.
>
> find /home/user -type f -name blah -exec mv -t ~/.Trashcan "{}" +

Thanks Neil and everyone.

- Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[Florian Philipp]

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Am 18.07.2011 10:48, schrieb Neil Bothwick:
> On Sun, 17 Jul 2011 18:40:44 -0700, Grant wrote:
> 
>> Alright, find is tricky.  Is this the right spot for -delete?
>>
>> /usr/bin/find /home/user -type f -name "*-`/bin/date -d 'yesterday'
>> +\%Y\%m\%d`*.jpg" - delete
> 
> Yes, but if you don't want irreversible mistakes, move the files instead.
> 
> find /home/user -type f -name blah -exec mv -t ~/.Trashcan "{}" +
> 
> 

In all these commands it would always be a good idea to deactivate
parameter parsing just in front of the place where the file names are
inserted.

find ... -print0 | xargs -0 mv -t ~/.Trashcan --
or
find ... -exec mv -t ~/.Trashcan -- "{}" +

The double dash will prevent mv from interpreting weird file names like
"-h" as parameters. Just about every standard GNU tool supports this.

Regards,
Florian Philipp


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Re: [gentoo-user] Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 19 Jul 2011 15:58:44 +0200, Florian Philipp wrote:

> In all these commands it would always be a good idea to deactivate
> parameter parsing just in front of the place where the file names are
> inserted.

Very good point!


-- 
Neil Bothwick

This is the day for firm decisions! Or is it?

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Re: [gentoo-user] Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[Grant]

>>> Alright, find is tricky.  Is this the right spot for -delete?
>>>
>>> /usr/bin/find /home/user -type f -name "*-`/bin/date -d 'yesterday'
>>> +\%Y\%m\%d`*.jpg" - delete
>>
>> Yes, but if you don't want irreversible mistakes, move the files instead.
>>
>> find /home/user -type f -name blah -exec mv -t ~/.Trashcan "{}" +
>>
>>
>
> In all these commands it would always be a good idea to deactivate
> parameter parsing just in front of the place where the file names are
> inserted.
>
> find ... -print0 | xargs -0 mv -t ~/.Trashcan --
> or
> find ... -exec mv -t ~/.Trashcan -- "{}" +
>
> The double dash will prevent mv from interpreting weird file names like
> "-h" as parameters. Just about every standard GNU tool supports this.

Does that apply to a command like this:

/usr/bin/find /home/user -type f -name "*-`/bin/date -d 'yesterday'
+\%Y\%m\%d`*.jpg" -delete

Maybe it should be changed to this:

/usr/bin/find /home/user -type f -name -- "*-`/bin/date -d 'yesterday'
+\%Y\%m\%d`*.jpg" -delete

- Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[David W Noon]

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On Tue, 19 Jul 2011 11:24:55 -0700, Grant wrote about Re: [gentoo-user]
Any way around "Argument list too long"?:

[snip]
> > The double dash will prevent mv from interpreting weird file names
> > like "-h" as parameters. Just about every standard GNU tool
> > supports this.
> 
> Does that apply to a command like this:
> 
> /usr/bin/find /home/user -type f -name "*-`/bin/date -d 'yesterday'
> +\%Y\%m\%d`*.jpg" -delete

No.

The find command is far too complicated for such a simple mechanism to
make sense.  Stopping the parser on such a character sequence has the
potential for disaster.

> Maybe it should be changed to this:
> 
> /usr/bin/find /home/user -type f -name -- "*-`/bin/date -d 'yesterday'
> +\%Y\%m\%d`*.jpg" -delete

If you wish to delete JPEG files that are a day or more old, you might
be better off using the ctime field in the directory entry:

 find /home/user -daystart -ctime 0 -type f -name \*.jpg -delete

To see which files would be deleted, run the above command with -delete
replaced by -print.

Note also that the "back-quote" notation for command sub-shells has been
deprecated since about 1993.  See:
  http://compute.cnr.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/man-cgi?ksh+1
and scroll down to the bottom of page 11.  You are better off using the
more modern $(command ...) notation.
-- 
Regards,

Dave  [RLU #314465]
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dwnoon@ntlworld.com (David W Noon)
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Re: [gentoo-user] Any way around "Argument list too long"?

[Joost Roeleveld]

Top-posting IMPORTANT NOTE ON TOP

Do NOT create the file I mention below unless you WANT to risk deleting ALL 
your files.

On Tuesday 19 July 2011 15:58:44 Florian Philipp wrote:
> The double dash will prevent mv from interpreting weird file names like
> "-h" as parameters. Just about every standard GNU tool supports this.

Or worse, a file called " -rf ".

If anyone wants to try what happens when " rm * " finds that file, please do so 
ONLY on a machine you want to wipe anyway...

-- 
Joost