I just came across the very-common Argument list too long parameter size issue when running some shell commands during the Wetpixel server migration (currently underway!).

chmod 777 *
-bash: //bin/chmod: Argument list too long

I did a bunch of searches in teh Google, and because it took more than 5 minutes to find a good solution, I’m posting more information here.

My goal was to change the permissions of every jpg starting with “post.” At first, I did this (which was recommended by one site):

chmod 777 post*.jpg
-bash: //bin/chmod: Argument list too long
chmod 777 post-[1-5]*.jpg
-bash: //bin/chmod: Argument list too long
chmod 777 post-[1-3]*.jpg
-bash: //bin/chmod: Argument list too long
chmod 777 post-0*.jpg

(etc. etc. etc.)

But then, I found another hint (the comments are the useful part), and tried:

ls post*.jpg | xargs chmod 777

Much cleaner!

Command-line stuff is hard when you're not in that environment a lot.