[bug #62622] E2BIG misbehaviour

[Thomas Hurst]

URL:
  <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?62622>

                 Summary: E2BIG misbehaviour
                 Project: findutils
               Submitter: freaky
               Submitted: Mon 13 Jun 2022 01:34:18 PM UTC
                Category: xargs
                Severity: 3 - Normal
              Item Group: Wrong result
                  Status: None
                 Privacy: Public
             Assigned to: None
         Originator Name: 
        Originator Email: 
             Open/Closed: Open
                 Release: None
         Discussion Lock: Any
           Fixed Release: None


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Follow-up Comments:


-------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon 13 Jun 2022 01:34:18 PM UTC By: Thomas Hurst <freaky>
Attempting to use the argument limit xargs declares in --show-args with -s
results in very unusual behaviour from xargs (and presumably other buildcmd
users).  This case shows the case of a single byte argument but similar
behaviour is observed with longer arguments:

$ limit=$(xargs --show-limits </dev/null 2>&1 | awk '/actually use/{print
$NF}')
$ yes | xargs -ts $limit /bin/sh -c 'echo;echo "$(date +%s.%N): $#"' 3>&1 1>&2
2>&3 |
  awk '{printf(".");fflush();}'
.
1655121905.912999462: 130756
.
1655121906.012978619: 130758
....
1655121906.421159119: 204309
.
1655121906.517402529: 57205
............................
1655121909.326479277: 208907
.
1655121909.432364542: 52607

Note the fluctuating argument count and number of command attempts.  This gets
quite large, so here is the same output with each line of dots replaced with
an attempt count:

1 attempts
1655121905.912999462: 130756
1 attempts
1655121906.012978619: 130758
4 attempts
1655121906.421159119: 204309
1 attempts
1655121906.517402529: 57205
28 attempts
1655121909.326479277: 208907
1 attempts
1655121909.432364542: 52607
409 attempts
1655121951.269149669: 209292
1 attempts
1655121951.364246685: 52222
1684 attempts
1655122117.319284123: 209368
1 attempts
1655122117.424518362: 52146
17382 attempts
1655123835.592837186: 209376
1 attempts
1655123835.690910762: 52138
2 attempts
1655123835.885544564: 130756
1 attempts
1655123835.990007112: 130757
1 attempts
1655123836.088681141: 0
2 attempts
1655123836.290857561: 130756
1 attempts
1655123836.388672514: 130757
1 attempts
1655123836.484069641: 0

It stabilizes at the latter three, going between 130756, 130757, and 0(!)
arguments to each invocation repeatedly.







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