Technical Notes

Manpages - split.1

NAME

split - split a file into pieces

SYNOPSIS

split [/OPTION/]… [/FILE /[/PREFIX/]]

DESCRIPTION

Output pieces of FILE to PREFIXaa, PREFIXab, …; default size is 1000 lines, and default PREFIX is 'x'.

With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

-a, *–suffix-length*=/N/
generate suffixes of length N (default 2)
*–additional-suffix*=/SUFFIX/
append an additional SUFFIX to file names
-b, *–bytes*=/SIZE/
put SIZE bytes per output file
-C, *–line-bytes*=/SIZE/
put at most SIZE bytes of records per output file
-d
use numeric suffixes starting at 0, not alphabetic
–numeric-suffixes[=/FROM/]
same as -d, but allow setting the start value
-x
use hex suffixes starting at 0, not alphabetic
–hex-suffixes[=/FROM/]
same as -x, but allow setting the start value
-e, –elide-empty-files
do not generate empty output files with '-n'
*–filter*=/COMMAND/
write to shell COMMAND; file name is $FILE
-l, *–lines*=/NUMBER/
put NUMBER lines/records per output file
-n, *–number*=/CHUNKS/
generate CHUNKS output files; see explanation below
-t, *–separator*=/SEP/
use SEP instead of newline as the record separator; '\0' (zero) specifies the NUL character
-u, –unbuffered
immediately copy input to output with '-n r/…'
–verbose
print a diagnostic just before each output file is opened
–help
display this help and exit
–version
output version information and exit

The SIZE argument is an integer and optional unit (example: 10K is 10*1024). Units are K,M,G,T,P,E,Z,Y,R,Q (powers of 1024) or KB,MB,… (powers of 1000). Binary prefixes can be used, too: KiB=K, MiB=M, and so on.

CHUNKS may be:

N
split into N files based on size of input
K/N
output Kth of N to stdout
l/N
split into N files without splitting lines/records
l/K/N
output Kth of N to stdout without splitting lines/records
r/N
like 'l' but use round robin distribution
r/K/N
likewise but only output Kth of N to stdout

AUTHOR

Written by Torbjorn Granlund and Richard M. Stallman.

REPORTING BUGS

GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>

SEE ALSO

Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/split>
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) split invocation'

\\ Packaged by https://nixos.org
Copyright © 2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.