12.2 Error Messages From xargs

‘environment is too large for exec’

This message means that you have so many environment variables set (or such large values for them) that there is no room within the system-imposed limits on program command line argument length to invoke any program. This is an unlikely situation and is more likely result of an attempt to test the limits of xargs, or break it. Please try unsetting some environment variables, or exiting the current shell. You can also use ‘xargs --show-limits’ to understand the relevant sizes.

‘argument list too long’

You are using the ‘-I’ option and xargs doesn’t have enough space to build a command line because it has read a really large item and it doesn’t fit. You may be able to work around this problem with the ‘-s’ option, but the default size is pretty large. This is a rare situation and is more likely an attempt to test the limits of xargs, or break it. Otherwise, you will need to try to shorten the problematic argument or not use xargs.

‘argument line too long’

You are using the ‘-L’ or ‘-l’ option and one of the input lines is too long. You may be able to work around this problem with the ‘-s’ option, but the default size is pretty large. If you can modify the your xargs command not to use ‘-L’ or ‘-l’, that will be more likely to result in success.

‘cannot fork’

See the description of the similar message for find.

‘<program>: exited with status 255; aborting’

When a command run by xargs exits with status 255, xargs is supposed to stop. If this is not what you intended, wrap the program you are trying to invoke in a shell script which doesn’t return status 255.

‘<program>: terminated by signal 99’

See the description of the similar message for find.

‘cannot set SIGUSR1 signal handler’

xargs is having trouble preparing for you to be able to send it signals to increase or decrease the parallelism of its processing. If you don’t plan to send it those signals, this warning can be ignored (though if you’re a programmer, you may want to help us figure out why xargs is confused by your operating system).

‘failed to redirect standard input of the child process’

xargs redirects the stdin stream of the command to be run to either /dev/null or to /dev/tty for the ‘-o’ option. See the manual of the system call dup2(2).