xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/split/split.1 (revision e93586df9d2139aa4082b26e077a5fd802b67a5a)
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32.\"	@(#)split.1	8.3 (Berkeley) 4/16/94
33.\" $FreeBSD$
34.\"
35.Dd July 12, 2004
36.Dt SPLIT 1
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm split
40.Nd split a file into pieces
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.Nm
43.Op Fl a Ar suffix_length
44.Op Fl b Ar byte_count[k|m]
45.Op Fl l Ar line_count
46.Op Fl p Ar pattern
47.Op Ar file Op Ar name
48.Sh DESCRIPTION
49The
50.Nm
51utility reads the given
52.Ar file
53and breaks it up into files of 1000 lines each.
54If
55.Ar file
56is a single dash
57.Pq Sq Fl
58or absent,
59.Nm
60reads from the standard input.
61.Pp
62The options are as follows:
63.Bl -tag -width Ds
64.It Fl a
65Use
66.Ar suffix_length
67letters to form the suffix of the file name.
68.It Fl b
69Create smaller files
70.Ar byte_count
71bytes in length.
72If
73.Dq Li k
74is appended to the number, the file is split into
75.Ar byte_count
76kilobyte pieces.
77If
78.Dq Li m
79is appended to the number, the file is split into
80.Ar byte_count
81megabyte pieces.
82.It Fl l
83Create smaller files
84.Ar n
85lines in length.
86.It Fl p Ar pattern
87The file is split whenever an input line matches
88.Ar pattern ,
89which is interpreted as an extended regular expression.
90The matching line will be the first line of the next output file.
91This option is incompatible with the
92.Fl b
93and
94.Fl l
95options.
96.El
97.Pp
98If additional arguments are specified, the first is used as the name
99of the input file which is to be split.
100If a second additional argument is specified, it is used as a prefix
101for the names of the files into which the file is split.
102In this case, each file into which the file is split is named by the
103prefix followed by a lexically ordered suffix using
104.Ar suffix_length
105characters in the range
106.Dq Li a-z .
107If
108.Fl a
109is not specified, two letters are used as the suffix.
110.Pp
111If the
112.Ar name
113argument is not specified, the file is split into lexically ordered
114files named with the prefix
115.Dq Li x
116and with suffixes as above.
117.Sh ENVIRONMENT
118The
119.Ev LANG , LC_ALL , LC_CTYPE
120and
121.Ev LC_COLLATE
122environment variables affect the execution of
123.Nm
124as described in
125.Xr environ 7 .
126.Sh EXIT STATUS
127.Ex -std
128.Sh SEE ALSO
129.Xr csplit 1 ,
130.Xr re_format 7
131.Sh STANDARDS
132The
133.Nm
134utility conforms to
135.St -p1003.1-2001 .
136.Sh HISTORY
137A
138.Nm
139command appeared in
140.At v3 .
141.Sh BUGS
142For historical reasons,
143.Nm
144can only create 676 separate
145files.
146The
147.Fl a
148option can be used to work around this limitation.
149.Pp
150The maximum line length for matching patterns is 65536.
151