Can't set mysqld_safe's open-files-limit to unlimited

The value provided for mysqld_safe's open-files-limit option gets passed right to "ulimit" here:

  if test -n "$open_files"

  then

    ulimit -n $open_files

  fi

https://github.com/MariaDB/server/blob/c2318291be7458238729ed80233ea71f1e6a62b8/scripts/mysqld_safe.sh#L709

The "ulimit" command accepts the special value of "unlimited" to represent no limit:

https://ss64.com/bash/ulimit.html

So it would make sense to be able to do the following:

[mysqld_safe]

open_files_limit=unlimited

However, this doesn't currently work because mysqld_safe appends its own value of open-files-limit to the list of arguments for mysqld here:

if test -n "$open_files"

then

  append_arg_to_args "--open-files-limit=$open_files"

fi

https://github.com/MariaDB/server/blob/c2318291be7458238729ed80233ea71f1e6a62b8/scripts/mysqld_safe.sh#L715

And since mysqld expects a numeric value for this option, it causes an error:

190128 23:27:41 mysqld_safe Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /var/lib/mysql

Unknown suffix 'u' used for variable 'open_files_limit' (value 'unlimited')

2019-01-28 23:27:41 139683855239360 [ERROR] //sbin/mysqld: Error while setting value 'unlimited' to 'open_files_limit'

https://mariadb.com/kb/en/library/server-system-variables/#open_files_limit

Maybe this should be changed, so that:

• If open-files-limit=unlimited, mysqld_safe does not pass the value to mysqld.
  or
• If open-files-limit=unlimited, mysqld_safe passes open_files_limit=4294967295 to mysqld instead.