[bug #20594] allow ./configure to choose default arg size limit

[Eric Blake]

URL:
  <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?20594>

                 Summary: allow ./configure to choose default arg size limit
                 Project: findutils
            Submitted by: ericb
            Submitted on: Thursday 07/26/2007 at 06:36
                Category: xargs
                Severity: 2 - Minor
              Item Group: Wrong result
                  Status: In Progress
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: ericb
         Originator Name: Eric Blake
        Originator Email: address@hidden
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
                 Release: 4.1.20
           Fixed Release: None

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Details:

xargs and find have a default maximum argument size that controls how many
bytes are collected before spawning a child process, when no other means is
used to change it (such as xargs -s).  In lib/buildcmd.c,
bc_use_sensible_arg_max, this value is hardcoded to 128k.

It would be desirable to let this default be chosen at ./configure time, so
it can be tuned to the system.  For example, on cygwin, there is a 32k limit
when invoking a Windows-native process, but unlimited when invoking a cygwin
process.  Setting the default to 32k instead of 128k at configure time would
make xargs usable for all applications, rather than just cygwin applications,
without having to always pass -s to xargs.  When bundling the cygwin package
for findutils, I have had to edit source code to make this change to the
default value; but it would be much nicer to build the package out of the box
merely with a ./configure change.

I'm working on a patch.





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