title: Is it possible to increase the maximum number of characters that ksh variable accepts?
body: <p>This is a follow up question to </p>
  
  <p><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14371326/what-is-the-maximum-number-of-characters-that-the-ksh-variable-accepts">What is the maximum number of characters that the ksh variable accepts?</a></p>
  
  <p>I checked my environment and it's allowing only </p>
  
  <pre><code>#include &lt;sys/limits.h&gt;
  $ cpp &lt;&lt;  HERE | tail -1
  &gt; #include &lt;limits.h&gt;
  &gt; ARG_MAX
  &gt; HERE
  1048576
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Is there a way to increase this? Or any alternatives for</p>
  
  <pre><code> while read line;
     do
        #parse logic
     done &lt; $filename
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>To handle really long lines? Based from the records I'm parsing it will not stop at 2M character lines.</p>
  
  <p>Environment Details :</p>
  
  <pre><code> AIX $ KSH Version M-11/16/88f 
  </code></pre>