[FAQ] ARG_MAX and POSIX (original) (raw)

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From: Sven Mascheck
Subject: [FAQ] ARG_MAX and POSIX
Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2007 18:47:31 +0200
User-agent: Mutt/1.5.13 (2006-08-11)

Hello,

The FAQ, item 19. "Argument list too long", reads about ARG_MAX:

"POSIX only requires 20k which was the traditional value used for probably 20 years."

In fact, this minimum is 4096. (It's accessible in the shell with "getconf _POSIX_ARG_MAX" on such a system. This value determines only the minimum, POSIX also knows ARG_MAX for the actual value.)

http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/basedefs/limits.h.html

By the way, while the abovementioned 20k is a value on several systems, it's not traditional. Early values were 5120 (Version 7, System III, 3BSD, earlier SCOs) and 10240 (early 4BSD and SysV).

Regards, Sven

<http://www.in-ulm.de/~mascheck/various/argmax/>