Argument list too long.

[Dag Wieers]

On Thu, 11 Sep 2003, Bill Rugolsky Jr. wrote:

> If you look at the approach taken in the Linux kernel, arbitrary
> limits are removed whenever (a) it can be done without vastly complicating
> the code, and (b) the common case (i.e., "fast path") remains fast.

And if you look at how limits have evolved with computer power, you see 
that upper limits are increased over time. Sure when computers only had 
640Kb, a 128Kb argument space was a bad idea. No arguing there.


> So if you can figure out how to keep execve() fast for the common case,
> but handle a gigabyte arg list (and environment, while you are at it!),
> without DoS, great.

It's not that I'm forcing anyone to use the whole argument space. And it's 
not that I'm arguing to make it 1Gb either.

I don't see why processing 1Gb arguments would be slower than processing 
10 times 100Kb arguments. I'd even wildly guess the latter case is slower 
than the first.


PS I removed the whole DOS explanation because I don't think it is 
relevant to the current situation. Unless you want to go back to the 255 
bytes argument space ;)

--   dag wieers,  dag at wieers.com,  http://dag.wieers.com/   --
[Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors]