LKBEN11067: Posix error 7: Argument list too long
Symptom
You get the error message: Argument list too long
Cause
none
Solution
In the bash shell, it can happen that you get an "Argument list too long" by using the rm command when the amount of
files you want to delete is to long. If you want to know how high your limit is you can find it with:
getconf ARG_MAX
On my system it delivers 131072.
In this case you can use xargs to do the job.
find -type f -print0 | xargs -0 rm
or you can use the find command at once (in this case for txt files)
find . -name "*.txt" -exec rm {} ;
You can also use a for loop
for i in *.txt; do rm "$i"; done
or
ls * | xargs rm (this might not be what you want!)
Disclaimer:
The information provided in this document is intended for your information only. Lubby makes no claims to the validity of this information. Use of this information is at own risk!About the Author
Author: - Keskon GmbH & Co. KG
Wim Peeters is electronics engineer with an additional master in IT and over 30 years of experience, including time spent in support, development, consulting, training and database administration. Wim has worked with SQL Server since version 6.5. He has developed in C/C++, Java and C# on Windows and Linux. He writes knowledge base articles to solve IT problems and publishes them on the Lubby Knowledge Platform.