Linux / UNIX : Argument list too long error in shell and solution

Q. I’m new to Linux. We have a backup server and most our developer sftp or ftp and upload files to our server. I just need backup of last 4 weeks. So if I try to list or remove directory I get an error cannot remove directory.

So my question is why am I getting an "Argument list too long" error message when executing some commands in the shell?

A. Each command under Linux/UNIX accepts a parameter commonly known as command arguments (or args).

For example, the command cd /etc is considered as 1 command line arguments, namely, /etc. Some command can accept more than 2 argument and act on supplied args. For example cp command:
$ cp /etc/file1 /etc/file2 /etc/file3 /mnt/pen

cp command has total 4 command line arguments. The shell can hold a maximum of 131072 bytes for command line arguments. If you try to pass more than that number you will greeted with an error that read as follows:

Argument list too long

Remember each character requires one byte of storage.

How do I get rid of this problem while using rm / ls or any other shell command?

The best way to deal with this problem is to use wild cards. For example, just list a directory starting with a character:
$ ls a*
or
$ rm a*

You can also use for loop to deal with group of files:

for fileset in a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t v w x z
do
   /bin/rm $fileset*
done

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