Thanks for the suggestions - however when I use an asterisk in my matching criteria (even for the "ls" command) - I get the same error.

I guess the default limit for an argument list is used for ALL commands.
Commands like "ls" "gzip" "tar" "cp" "mv" "cat" - all complain when I try to limit the argument list.

I was hoping there was some shell configuration setting that would increase the allowable size - but I'm beginning to think that it's the programs problem - not the shell environment.

Rick