David Gómez wrote [2002/10/02 09:12]:
> 
> > > I created a directory with 100000 files to test the new htree patch
> > > for the ext3 filesystem, and found a ¿bug? when I tried to remove all
> > > the files. The command 'rm *' gave the error 'zsh: argument list too
> > > long'. If expansion doesn't support so many parameters, what it's the
> > > supossed way to remove all these files without deleting the
> > > directory?
> > 
> > You sure the error wasn't 'zsh: argument list too long: rm' ?
> 
> You're right, that was the full error line. I didn't put the rm because
> i thought it wasn't important, my fault.
> 
> > internal shell wildcard expansion has no argument limit.  execve()
> > does.  Either raise your kernel's limit (sorry; don't know how to do it
> > on Linux), 
> 
> I've been trying to raise some limits, but none of them affect the number of 
> parameters execve() supports, maybe is possible to change it in linux through
> some /proc variable, or a kernel recompilation is needed.
> 
> I just wanted to know if this was a zsh related problem, now i'll look forward
> to know how to change execve limits.

/usr/src/linux/include/linux> grep ARG_MAX limits.h 
#define ARG_MAX       131072    /* # bytes of args + environ for exec() */

Hopefully, changing this value and recompiling your kernel will help...

Ciao,
Thomas

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