Linux

Getting "Argument list too long" when using ls

Ahmed Aboulnaga

I was trying to count the number of files in a particular directory in Linux using the ls command and received the following error:

oracle@soadev:/home/oracle> ls /u01/archive/*.* | wc -l
-bash: /bin/ls: Argument list too long

Turns out the resolution to this is to increase increase the stack space to a higher value:

oracle@soadev:/home/oracle> ulimit -s
10240

oracle@soadev:/home/oracle> ulimit -s 65536

oracle@soadev:/home/oracle> ls /u01/archive/*.* | wc -l
97101

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