xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/split/split.1 (revision d9a42747950146bf03cda7f6e25d219253f8a57a)
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28.\"	@(#)split.1	8.3 (Berkeley) 4/16/94
29.\" $FreeBSD$
30.\"
31.Dd April 18, 2023
32.Dt SPLIT 1
33.Os
34.Sh NAME
35.Nm split
36.Nd split a file into pieces
37.Sh SYNOPSIS
38.Nm
39.Op Fl d
40.Op Fl l Ar line_count
41.Op Fl a Ar suffix_length
42.Op Ar file Op Ar prefix
43.Nm
44.Op Fl d
45.Fl b Ar byte_count Ns
46.Oo
47.Sm off
48.Cm K | k | M | m | G | g
49.Sm on
50.Oc
51.Op Fl a Ar suffix_length
52.Op Ar file Op Ar prefix
53.Nm
54.Op Fl d
55.Fl n Ar chunk_count
56.Op Fl a Ar suffix_length
57.Op Ar file Op Ar prefix
58.Nm
59.Op Fl d
60.Fl p Ar pattern
61.Op Fl a Ar suffix_length
62.Op Ar file Op Ar prefix
63.Sh DESCRIPTION
64The
65.Nm
66utility reads the given
67.Ar file
68and breaks it up into files of 1000 lines each
69(if no options are specified), leaving the
70.Ar file
71unchanged.
72If
73.Ar file
74is a single dash
75.Pq Sq Fl
76or absent,
77.Nm
78reads from the standard input.
79.Pp
80The options are as follows:
81.Bl -tag -width indent
82.It Fl a Ar suffix_length
83Use
84.Ar suffix_length
85letters to form the suffix of the file name.
86.It Fl b Ar byte_count Ns Oo
87.Sm off
88.Cm K | k | M | m | G | g
89.Sm on
90.Oc
91Create split files
92.Ar byte_count
93bytes in length.
94If
95.Cm k
96or
97.Cm K
98is appended to the number, the file is split into
99.Ar byte_count
100kilobyte pieces.
101If
102.Cm m
103or
104.Cm M
105is appended to the number, the file is split into
106.Ar byte_count
107megabyte pieces.
108If
109.Cm g
110or
111.Cm G
112is appended to the number, the file is split into
113.Ar byte_count
114gigabyte pieces.
115.It Fl d
116Use a numeric suffix instead of a alphabetic suffix.
117.It Fl l Ar line_count
118Create split files
119.Ar line_count
120lines in length.
121.It Fl n Ar chunk_count
122Split file into
123.Ar chunk_count
124smaller files.
125The first n - 1 files will be of size (size of
126.Ar file
127/
128.Ar chunk_count
129)
130and the last file will contain the remaining bytes.
131.It Fl p Ar pattern
132The file is split whenever an input line matches
133.Ar pattern ,
134which is interpreted as an extended regular expression.
135The matching line will be the first line of the next output file.
136This option is incompatible with the
137.Fl b
138and
139.Fl l
140options.
141.El
142.Pp
143If additional arguments are specified, the first is used as the name
144of the input file which is to be split.
145If a second additional argument is specified, it is used as a prefix
146for the names of the files into which the file is split.
147In this case, each file into which the file is split is named by the
148prefix followed by a lexically ordered suffix using
149.Ar suffix_length
150characters in the range
151.Dq Li a Ns - Ns Li z .
152If
153.Fl a
154is not specified, two letters are used as the suffix.
155.Pp
156If the
157.Ar prefix
158argument is not specified, the file is split into lexically ordered
159files named with the prefix
160.Dq Li x
161and with suffixes as above.
162.Sh ENVIRONMENT
163The
164.Ev LANG , LC_ALL , LC_CTYPE
165and
166.Ev LC_COLLATE
167environment variables affect the execution of
168.Nm
169as described in
170.Xr environ 7 .
171.Sh EXIT STATUS
172.Ex -std
173.Sh EXAMPLES
174Split input into as many files as needed, so that each file contains at most 2
175lines:
176.Bd -literal -offset indent
177$ echo -e "first line\\nsecond line\\nthird line\\nforth line" | split -l2
178.Ed
179.Pp
180Split input in chunks of 10 bytes using numeric prefixes for file names.
181This generates two files of 10 bytes (x00 and x01) and a third file (x02) with the
182remaining 2 bytes:
183.Bd -literal -offset indent
184$ echo -e "This is 22 bytes long" | split -d -b10
185.Ed
186.Pp
187Split input generating 6 files:
188.Bd -literal -offset indent
189$ echo -e "This is 22 bytes long" | split -n 6
190.Ed
191.Pp
192Split input creating a new file every time a line matches the regular expression
193for a
194.Dq t
195followed by either
196.Dq a
197or
198.Dq u
199thus creating two files:
200.Bd -literal -offset indent
201$ echo -e "stack\\nstock\\nstuck\\nanother line" | split -p 't[au]'
202.Ed
203.Sh SEE ALSO
204.Xr csplit 1 ,
205.Xr re_format 7
206.Sh STANDARDS
207The
208.Nm
209utility conforms to
210.St -p1003.1-2001 .
211.Sh HISTORY
212A
213.Nm
214command appeared in
215.At v3 .
216.Pp
217Before
218.Fx 14 ,
219pattern and line matching only operated on lines shorter than 65,536 bytes.
220