OT -OS X file limit with Trash? - Magic number 10,923

[Douglas]

Using OS X 10.6.3-
My wife managed to get 23,500 files (or thereabouts!) in one of her 
Firefox folders.
She wanted to keep the 100 most recent ones.

So I thought - Easy, just list by Date Modified, go to the first one she 
wants to bin, scroll right down to the end, Shift Click on the last one 
to select the lot and then drag them to the bin.
(It would of course have been easier to select the ones that she wanted 
to keep, copy them somewhere else, then bin the folder!)
On dragging the selected set of files to te Trash basket -
Only the FIRST 10,923 of the selected files were actually moved to the 
Trash.
The progress window shows this number even before starting the move and 
counts down.
After the files have been moved, the other 12,477 files were still 
selected, and again when dragged to the Trash, only the FIRST 10.923 
files actually moved!

Just to be sure it wasn't a limit on trash capacity or the underlying 
file system, I reinstated all the files and binned the folder containing 
the 23,400 files - no problem.
Is this limit only in the GUI and only for Trash?
Remember, ALL the files were selected in the window, so it's not a 
selection limit.
I have never heard of this before - Anyone else?
I have no idea why anyone would want to delete more than 10,923 files at 
a time in a GUI anyway!
It is just possible that it is relevant to other operations as well.

Douglas

========================== ^-^ =========================
"Le Chat" - A cartoon strip so pretentious that it doesn't even have a 
cartoon!

I'm getting a bit tired of this, I'm just going to stare at the wall for 
a while - OK?