unix question: files per directory

[Guy Harris]

>Yep, there are workarounds (xargs, patch the shell to allow very large (64k)
>variables),

It's not always just the shell; it may be the kernel (or whatever
implements "exec").  The Bourne shell has no wired-in limit; most
flavors of UNIX have a limit between 5,120 characters and 20,480
characters.  (SunOS has a limit of 1MB; while the Bourne shell will
cheerfully let you use all of it, the C shell has its own limitations,
alas.)

>but if it were me, I'd really look for a way of breaking
>things up in subdirectories.

This is a good idea, since directory searching gets slower the more
entries there are in a directory.