Frederick Bruckman wrote:

> On Mon, 1 Nov 1999, David Wetzel wrote:
> 
> > I have this file:
> > 
> > -rw-r--r--  1 dave  wheel  247145803 Oct 28 06:07 Kurs.db
> > 
> > if I do
> > 
> > grep creationDate Kurs.db | wc -l
> 
> > it is simply death. no ping response no nothing.
> > 
> > But that works:
> > wc -l Kurs.db  returns
> >  9373590 Kurs.db
> 
> The discussion surrounding PR bin/8681 may interest you:
> 
> <http://www.NetBSD.org/cgi-bin/query-pr-single.pl?number=8681>
> 
> In short, `grep' seems to have a problem with large binary files, 
> and not only on NetBSD. At the moment, there is no simple solution 
> or work-around.

Hmm, it shouldn't die like that though.  How much physical memory and
swap space do you have, and how long does it take to die?

In your case David:

	strings Kurs.db | grep creationDate | wc -l

should work...

Simon.