What can I do about an "argument list too long" error in a shell command or script?
Issue
When trying to interact with a huge number of files from the command line or a shell script, it fails with an error message:
# ls *.txt
-bash: /bin/ls: Argument list too long
Or, when trying to delete a large number of files using find, it fails with an error message:
# find -type f -name '*.txt' -exec rm -i {} \;
-bash: /usr/bin/find: Argument list too long
Environment
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux
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