Argument list too long

Rahul Sundaram sundaram at fedoraproject.org
Wed Aug 1 20:05:12 UTC 2007


Ashley M. Kirchner wrote:
> 
>    Question: at what point would commands such as 'ls', 'cp' and others 
> consider the argument list too long?  The reason I'm asking is because 
> I'm getting random results here.  One time 'ls' would tell it the 
> argument list is too long when the file count in the folder reached 
> around 2,000 files.  Another, like this morning, it let me go all the 
> way to 2,600+ before complaining.  And just now it reached 1,900 files 
> and already 'ls' is complaining.  That seems random to me.  Is there a 
> set number that causes all of these commands to fail with 'Argument list 
> too long' or what convoluted algorithm is used to figure it out?

See http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/faq/#Argument-list-too-long

Rahul




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