HACKTUX notes from the trenches

Getting an "Argument list too long" error using Linux?

This is because you are passing too many arguments to an executable.
For example, using *.html below results in too many arguments to /bin/rm:

rm *.html
bash: /bin/rm: Argument list too long

One solution is to use Bash control loops to iterate through arguments.

for HTMLFILE in *.html
> do
> rm -f $HTMLFILE
> done

Alternatively, the find command can be used to manipulate large data sets.
The following find command is identical in result to the for loop shown above.

bash$ find ./ -maxdepth 1 -name '*.html' -exec rm -f {} \;