Re: Adding to the command line via variables

From: Chris F.A. Johnson (cfajohnson_at_gmail.com)
Date: 07/31/05 

Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2005 21:21:13 -0400

On 2005-07-31, Greg Andrews wrote:
> cfajohnson@gmail.com writes:
>>
>> Unless you need a regular expression to select the files, there is
>> no need for ls or grep. To print all the files beginning with
>> "output", just use:
>>
>>lp -d printername output*
>>
>
> That's a good approach, but there is one caveat: Some of the SVR4
> derived print systems (where the "lp" command came from) have limits
> on the number of files that can be printed in each lp command.
>
> On Solaris 2.3 through Solaris 99, the limit is something like 52 or 56.
> I don't know if Solaris 10 has expanded that limit.

   The OP said:

>>> I don't expect to ever exceed the allowable count of command line
>>> parameters.

   However, if there is a problem, they can be processed one or more
   at a time:

for f in output* ## One at a time
do
  lp -d printername $f
done

set -- output*
while [ $# -gt 9 ] ## Nine at a time
do
   lp -d printername "$1" "$2" "$3" "$4" "$5" "$6" "$7" "$8" "$9"
   shift 9
done
[ $# -gt 0 ] && lp -d printername "@" 

-- 
    Chris F.A. Johnson                     <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
    ==================================================================
    Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach, 2005, Apress
    <http://www.torfree.net/~chris/books/cfaj/ssr.html>