Patch-ID# 101565-01
Keywords: xargs arg size
Synopsis: SunOS 5.2: xargs miscomputes arg list size of exactly 570 in 2.X
Date: Mar/23/94

Solaris Release: 2.2

SunOS release: 5.2

Unbundled Product:

Unbundled Release:

Topic: SunOS 5.2: xargs miscomputes arg list size of exactly 570 in 2.X

BugId's fixed with this patch: 1152495

Changes incorporated in this version:

Relevant Architectures: sparc

Patches accumulated and obsoleted by this patch:

Patches which conflict with this patch:

Patches required with this patch:

Obsoleted by:

Files included with this patch:

/usr/bin/xargs

Problem Description:

1152495 xargs miscomputes arg list size of exactly 570 in 2.X

Under certain circumstances the xargs utility will misuse an internal array
and pass invalid argument lists to the forked utility it is supposssed to run. The
typical error returned from the child process to xargs shows up like this:

         xargs: <command> not executed or returned -1

The child is dying as the argument list passed to it apparently has an arg
with no terminating NULL. Using the source to xargs I have determined that
the problem lies with the definition of the size of the BUFSIZE constant.

This problem occurs on Solaris 2.1 and Solaris 2.2, 2.3.

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