Argument list too long error for rm, cp, mv commands

Question

I have several hundred PDFs under a directory in UNIX. The names of the PDFs are really long (approx. 60 chars).

When I try to delete all PDFs together using the fol

Answer 1

If they are filenames with spaces or special characters, use:

find -maxdepth 1 -name '*.pdf' -exec rm "{}" \;

This sentence search all files in the current directory (-maxdepth 1) with extension pdf (-name '*.pdf'), and then, delete each one (-exec rm "{}").

The expression {} replace the name of the file, and, "{}" set the filename as string, including spaces or special characters.