[TUHS] unix v5 limitations

[John Cowan]

Mark Longridge scripsit:

> The first problem I had was I couldn't just cp over all the
> /usr/source/s1 files to the new drive because of "Arg list too long"
> so I figured I would just create an archive file called all.a which
> would include all the files in /usr/source/s1 and copy that over.

That is not a cp error: it is the kernel reporting that the limited
amount of space in userland reserved for command arguments on an exec()
has been exceeded.  It can still happen in modern systems if directories
are exceedingly large.

> But then I got "phase error" when I tried to keep adding files to the
> archive 

"Phase error" means that a file has been modified while "ar" is working
on it.  The most common reason (which doesn't seem to be relevant in
this case) is that "ar" is trying to archive the archive.

> ar u all.a /usr/source/s1/b*

If that worked, then "cp /usr/source/s1/b* ." would work too.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
I am expressing my opinion.  When my honorable and gallant friend is
called, he will express his opinion.  This is the process which we
call Debate.                   --Winston Churchill