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Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 11:26:27 -0500
From: Mark Mielke <mark@mark.mielke.cc>
To: Kent Borg <kentborg@borg.org>
Cc: Adam Voigt <adam@cryptocomm.com>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: File Limit in Kernel?
Message-ID: <20021112162627.GB6811@mark.mielke.cc>
References: <1037115535.1439.5.camel@beowulf.cryptocomm.com> <20021112110149.A9492@borg.org>
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On Tue, Nov 12, 2002 at 11:01:49AM -0500, Kent Borg wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 12, 2002 at 10:38:55AM -0500, Adam Voigt wrote:
> > I have a directory with 39,000 files in it, and I'm trying to use the cp
> > command to copy them into another directory, 
> > [...]
> > "argument list too long"
> No, it is not a kernel limit, it is a limit to your shell (bash, for
> example).  Look at xargs to get around it.

>From "man execve":

       E2BIG  The argument list is too big.

>From "man sysconf":

       _SC_ARG_MAX
              The  maximum  length of the arguments to the exec()
              family of functions;  the  corresponding  macro  is
              ARG_MAX.

On my RedHat 8.0 box:

       $ getconf ARG_MAX
       131072

It is definately a kernel limitation, although as other people have
pointed out, there are common userspace solutions to the problem.

mark

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