NAME
split —
split a file into pieces
SYNOPSIS
split |
[-a
suffix_length]
[-b
byte_count[k|m ]
| -l line_count
-n chunk_count]
[file
[name]] |
DESCRIPTION
The
split utility reads the given
file
and breaks it up into files of 1000 lines each. If
file
is a single dash or absent,
split reads from the standard
input.
file itself is not altered.
The options are as follows:
-
-
- -a
- Use suffix_length letters to form the
suffix of the file name.
-
-
- -b
- Create smaller files byte_count bytes
in length. If ‘
k
’ is appended to the
number, the file is split into byte_count kilobyte
pieces. If ‘m
’ is appended to the
number, the file is split into byte_count megabyte
pieces.
-
-
- -l
- Create smaller files line_count lines
in length.
-
-
- -n
- Split file into chunk_count smaller
files.
If additional arguments are specified, the first is used as the name of the
input file which is to be split. If a second additional argument is specified,
it is used as a prefix for the names of the files into which the file is
split. In this case, each file into which the file is split is named by the
prefix followed by a lexically ordered suffix using
suffix_length characters in the range
“
a-z
”. If
-a is not
specified, two letters are used as the suffix.
If the
name argument is not specified,
‘
x
’ is used.
STANDARDS
The
split utility conforms to
IEEE Std
1003.1-2001 (“POSIX.1”).
HISTORY
A
split command appeared in
Version 6
AT&T UNIX.
The
-a option was introduced in
NetBSD
2.0. Before that, if
name was not specified,
split would vary the first letter of the filename to
increase the number of possible output files. The
-a option
makes this unnecessary.