xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/split/split.1 (revision e93586df9d2139aa4082b26e077a5fd802b67a5a)

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.\"	@(#)split.1	8.3 (Berkeley) 4/16/94
.\" $FreeBSD$
.\"
.Dd July 12, 2004
.Dt SPLIT 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm split
.Nd split a file into pieces
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl a Ar suffix_length
.Op Fl b Ar byte_count[k|m]
.Op Fl l Ar line_count
.Op Fl p Ar pattern
.Op Ar file Op Ar name
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility reads the given
.Ar file
and breaks it up into files of 1000 lines each.
If
.Ar file
is a single dash
.Pq Sq Fl
or absent,
.Nm
reads from the standard input.
.Pp
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl a
Use
.Ar suffix_length
letters to form the suffix of the file name.
.It Fl b
Create smaller files
.Ar byte_count
bytes in length.
If
.Dq Li k
is appended to the number, the file is split into
.Ar byte_count
kilobyte pieces.
If
.Dq Li m
is appended to the number, the file is split into
.Ar byte_count
megabyte pieces.
.It Fl l
Create smaller files
.Ar n
lines in length.
.It Fl p Ar pattern
The file is split whenever an input line matches
.Ar pattern ,
which is interpreted as an extended regular expression.
The matching line will be the first line of the next output file.
This option is incompatible with the
.Fl b
and
.Fl l
options.
.El
.Pp
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
.Ar suffix_length
characters in the range
.Dq Li a-z .
If
.Fl a
is not specified, two letters are used as the suffix.
.Pp
If the
.Ar name
argument is not specified, the file is split into lexically ordered
files named with the prefix
.Dq Li x
and with suffixes as above.
.Sh ENVIRONMENT
The
.Ev LANG , LC_ALL , LC_CTYPE
and
.Ev LC_COLLATE
environment variables affect the execution of
.Nm
as described in
.Xr environ 7 .
.Sh EXIT STATUS
.Ex -std
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr csplit 1 ,
.Xr re_format 7
.Sh STANDARDS
The
.Nm
utility conforms to
.St -p1003.1-2001 .
.Sh HISTORY
A
.Nm
command appeared in
.At v3 .
.Sh BUGS
For historical reasons,
.Nm
can only create 676 separate
files.
The
.Fl a
option can be used to work around this limitation.
.Pp
The maximum line length for matching patterns is 65536.