Add Command Line Line Length Limitations as a unix til

unix/command-line-length-limitations.md

@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+# Command Line Length Limitations
+
+The other day I tried to run a remove command on the contents of a directory
+with a **LOT** of files.
+
+```
+$ rm images/*
+```
+
+Instead of deleting the contents of the directory, the following message was
+displayed:
+
+```
+/bin/rm: cannot execute [Argument list too long]
+```
+
+Bash wanted to expand the entire command before executing it. It was too
+long. But what is too long?
+
+It turns out that we can figure out the max length of commands with the
+following command:
+
+```
+$ getconf ARG_MAX
+```
+
+For me, the result is `262144`.
+
+[source
+1](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11289551/argument-list-too-long-error-for-rm-cp-mv-commands)
+and [source
+2](http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/argument-list-too-long-error-solution/)