Argument list too long....

[aique]

Hi, i have a server running tru64 unix on it.
i am facing a problem. whenever i issue "ls" command with a '*' wildcard. After showing some 6-7 hundred files, it ends with an error message "Argument list too long".
Any suggestions to avoid this message would be highly arretiable.
Thanks and regards,

Abdul Qayyum.

[Steven Schweda]

Patient: "Doctor, it hurts when I do this."
Doctor: "Don't do that."

Why "ls *" instead of "ls"?

The usual solution involves using "find", for
example:

find . -name '*'

The apostrophes in >'*'< prevent the shell
from expanding the wildcard >*<, which is
what causes the too-long argument list in a
command like "ls *".

[Ivan Ferreira]

The number of files in your file system is too large. You should remove some files. You can use ls to list the files, if you want to run some command on those files, use find and xargs.

[Hein van den Heuvel]

Steve is right.
There are easier commands for the shell.

But sometimes it is appropropriate to allow for even longer command lines. In that case, try reconfiguring the dynamic param exec_disable_arg_limit.
The default is 0.
Make it 1 to increase the limit.
Something like:

sysconfig -r proc exec_disable_arg_limit=1

Hein.

[aique]

Hi,
nice joke :)
well steven my client usually uses following commands frequently. And gets this error message:

#wc *.INT
ksh: /usr/bin/wc: arg list too long

#ls *.INT
ksh: /usr/bin/ls: arg list too long

And after showing some results it ends with the error message stated above.

Note: Its Tru64 Unix V5.1

Please suggest if i need to change some kernal parameter.

Thanks,
Abdul Qayyum.

[Venkatesh BL]

Check out this link:
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/support/askkcs/hpcg/253_0_10495272_2883413.html

[Steven Schweda]

In directories with very many files, that
kind of wildcard use tends to cause this
problem.

I'll admit that "wc *.INT" does give you a
nice total at the end, which you won't get
with a "find" or "xargs" method.

I don't know where to find a directory with
too many files in it (and I'm too lazy to
make one), so I can't test this easily, but
it's possible that a different shell would
have a different limit. (I use "GNU bash,
version 3.1.1(1)-release (alpha-dec-osf5.1)",
for example, but I don't know if that's
actually better than your "ksh".)

[Ivan Ferreira]

Try with something like:

ls |grep "INT"

la |grep "INT" | xargs -t -i wc {}

[Hein van den Heuvel · Accepted solution]

> Please suggest if i need to change some kernal parameter.

Isn't that what I told you above already?

>>> sysconfig -r proc exec_disable_arg_limit=1

Hein.

[aique]

Hi,
Hein is changing the value of "exec_disable_arg_limit" to 1 is the only step to follow or any other parameter also needs to be changed like ARG_MAX?

Thanks,
Abdul Qayyum.

[aique]

My problem is solved by setting the value of exec_disable_arg_limit to 1.

Thanks to all.

Abdul Qayyum