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
