I'm hoping someone has run into this previously...

os=WinXP
perl=active perl 5.6.1

we have quite a few environment varibles defined for
our application...under XP, using the cmd.exe shell,
the limits for a single variables length is somewhere near
an 8K limit, while the entire environment space is
65MB...this comes from the microsoft knowledgebase.

Using 'wc' (word count - gnu util), the total env space
that I am occupying contains roughly 30,000 charaters.
If I extend this by adding a new variable in a perl
script using $ENV, and I exceed 31,060 or there about, I
experience a failure to execute the system call
all together...however all other perl execution is fine...
I can print the variables that I have just set, etc. The
system call would be something simple like system("dir");

I have tried backticks and using exec. No luck.

I have examined PERL5SHELL and it points to cmd.exe which
should support much larger env sizes accroding to
microsoft.

Any ideas as to why I am running up against this limit?

In reply to environment limitations by joinersw

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