xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/split/split.1 (revision 6e8394b8baa7d5d9153ab90de6824bcd19b3b4e1)
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32.\"	@(#)split.1	8.3 (Berkeley) 4/16/94
33.\"	$Id$
34.\"
35.Dd April 16, 1994
36.Dt SPLIT 1
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm split
40.Nd split a file into pieces
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.Nm split
43.Op Fl b Ar byte_count[k|m]
44.Op Fl l Ar line_count
45.Op Fl p Ar pattern
46.Op Ar file Op Ar name
47.Sh DESCRIPTION
48The
49.Nm split
50utility reads the given
51.Ar file
52(or standard input if no file is specified)
53and breaks it up into files of 1000 lines each.
54.Pp
55The options are as follows:
56.Bl -tag -width Ds
57.It Fl b
58Create smaller files
59.Ar byte_count
60bytes in length.
61If
62.Dq Li k
63is appended to the number, the file is split into
64.Ar byte_count
65kilobyte pieces.
66If
67.Dq Li m
68is appended to the number, the file is split into
69.Ar byte_count
70megabyte pieces.
71.It Fl l
72Create smaller files
73.Ar n
74lines in length.
75.It Fl p Ar pattern
76The file is split whenever an input line matches
77.Ar pattern ,
78which is interpreted as an extended regular expression.
79The matching line will be the first line of the next output file.
80This option is incompatible with the
81.Fl b
82and
83.Fl l
84options.
85.El
86.Pp
87If additional arguments are specified, the first is used as the name
88of the input file which is to be split.
89If a second additional argument is specified, it is used as a prefix
90for the names of the files into which the file is split.
91In this case, each file into which the file is split is named by the
92prefix followed by a lexically ordered suffix in the range of
93.Dq Li aa-zz .
94.Pp
95If the
96.Ar name
97argument is not specified, the file is split into lexically ordered
98files named in the range of
99.Dq Li xaa-zzz .
100.Sh BUGS
101For historical reasons, if you specify
102.Ar name ,
103.Nm split
104can only create 676 separate
105files.
106The default naming convention allows 2028 separate files.
107.Pp
108The maximum line length for matching patterns is 65536.
109.Sh SEE ALSO
110.Xr re_format 7 .
111.Sh HISTORY
112A
113.Nm split
114command appeared in
115.At v6 .
116