Argument list too long

E2BIG from a large expansion

The argument list exceeded the kernel limit, usually after a glob or command substitution expanded to more than expected.

echo * | wc -c
getconf ARG_MAX

find . -name '*.log' -print0 | xargs -0 grep pattern

-print0 with xargs -0 also survives filenames containing spaces and newlines.

find . -type f | xargs -n 200 grep -l pattern

Scope: failure mode: E2BIG from an oversized expansion.

CliHelper documents failure modes of third-party command line tools. No software is stored or distributed here.