http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=684301


in reply to perl: Argument list too long

I think the error must be coming from the shell invoking perl, not perl itself. The error would not be due to setting environment variables, but what is passed to $PERL_BIN/perl.

To confirm ...

Thanks (rest of the posters) for the clue that environment is also part of the space calculation, which I had outright dismissed in my reply.