Re: Argument list too long

[Bob Proulx]

Gerald Speers wrote:
> For years now I have had this problem.  Doing a grep inside a directory 
> that has a lot of files in it I get this error message.
> 
> Argument list too long
> 
> Is anyone ever going to fix this? or does it's old age make it a feature?

It is neither a bug nor a feature.  And it is not particular to grep.
It is an issue with kernels that use a fixed size argument buffer.

Please read this reference.  Look for "Argument list too long".

  http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/faq/

Bob