[CentOS] ls and rm: "argument list too long"

Laurent Wandrebeck l.wandrebeck at gmail.com
Fri Oct 17 09:36:54 UTC 2008


2008/10/17 Jussi Hirvi <greenspot at greenspot.fi>:
> Since when is there a limit in how long directory listings CentOS can show
> (ls), or how large directories can be removed (rm). It is really annoying to
> say, for example
>
>    rm -rf /var/amavis/tmp
>
> and get only "argument list too long" as feedback.
>
> Is there a way to go round this problem?
>
> I have CentOS 5.2.
>
> - Jussi
try something like:
for i in /var/amavis/tmp/*
do
    rm -rf $i
done

Laurent



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