1.\" 2.\" Copyright (c) 2000 Sheldon Hearn <sheldonh@FreeBSD.org>. 3.\" All rights reserved. 4.\" 5.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 6.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 7.\" are met: 8.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 9.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 10.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 11.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 12.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 13.\" 14.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 15.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 16.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 17.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 18.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 19.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 20.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 21.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 22.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 23.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 24.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 25.\" 26.\" $FreeBSD$ 27.\" 28.Dd July 27, 2020 29.Dt TRUNCATE 1 30.Os 31.Sh NAME 32.Nm truncate 33.Nd truncate or extend the length of files 34.Sh SYNOPSIS 35.Nm 36.Op Fl c 37.Bk -words 38.Fl s Xo 39.Sm off 40.Op Cm + | - | % | / 41.Ar size 42.Op Cm K | k | M | m | G | g | T | t 43.Sm on 44.Xc 45.Ek 46.Ar 47.Nm 48.Op Fl c 49.Bk -words 50.Fl r Ar rfile 51.Ek 52.Ar 53.Sh DESCRIPTION 54The 55.Nm 56utility adjusts the length of each regular file given on the command-line. 57.Pp 58The following options are available: 59.Bl -tag -width indent 60.It Fl c 61Do not create files if they do not exist. 62The 63.Nm 64utility does not treat this as an error. 65No error messages are displayed 66and the exit value is not affected. 67.It Fl r Ar rfile 68Truncate or extend files to the length of the file 69.Ar rfile . 70.It Fl s Xo 71.Sm off 72.Op Cm + | - | % | / 73.Ar size 74.Op Cm K | k | M | m | G | g | T | t 75.Sm on 76.Xc 77If the 78.Ar size 79argument is preceded by a plus sign 80.Pq Cm + , 81files will be extended by this number of bytes. 82If the 83.Ar size 84argument is preceded by a dash 85.Pq Cm - , 86file lengths will be reduced by no more than this number of bytes, 87to a minimum length of zero bytes. 88If the 89.Ar size 90argument is preceded by a percent sign 91.Pq Cm % , 92files will be round up to a multiple of this number of bytes. 93If the 94.Ar size 95argument is preceded by a slash sign 96.Pq Cm / , 97files will be round down to a multiple of this number of bytes, 98to a minimum length of zero bytes. 99Otherwise, the 100.Ar size 101argument specifies an absolute length to which all files 102should be extended or reduced as appropriate. 103.Pp 104The 105.Ar size 106argument may be suffixed with one of 107.Cm K , 108.Cm M , 109.Cm G 110or 111.Cm T 112(either upper or lower case) to indicate a multiple of 113Kilobytes, Megabytes, Gigabytes or Terabytes 114respectively. 115.El 116.Pp 117Exactly one of the 118.Fl r 119and 120.Fl s 121options must be specified. 122.Pp 123If a file is made smaller, its extra data is lost. 124If a file is made larger, 125it will be extended as if by writing bytes with the value zero. 126If the file does not exist, 127it is created unless the 128.Fl c 129option is specified. 130.Pp 131Note that, 132while truncating a file causes space on disk to be freed, 133extending a file does not cause space to be allocated. 134To extend a file and actually allocate the space, 135it is necessary to explicitly write data to it, 136using (for example) the shell's 137.Ql >> 138redirection syntax, or 139.Xr dd 1 . 140.Sh EXIT STATUS 141.Ex -std 142If the operation fails for an argument, 143.Nm 144will issue a diagnostic 145and continue processing the remaining arguments. 146.Sh EXAMPLES 147Adjust the size of the file 148.Pa test_file 149to 10 Megabytes but do not create it if it does not exist: 150.Bd -literal -offset indent 151truncate -c -s +10M test_file 152.Ed 153.Pp 154Same as above but create the file if it does not exist: 155.Bd -literal -offset indent 156truncate -s +10M test_file 157ls -l test_file 158-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 10485760 Jul 22 18:48 test_file 159.Ed 160.Pp 161Adjust the size of 162.Pa test_file 163to the size of the kernel and create another file 164.Pa test_file2 165with the same size: 166.Bd -literal -offset indent 167truncate -r /boot/kernel/kernel test_file test_file2 168ls -l /boot/kernel/kernel test_file* 169-r-xr-xr-x 1 root wheel 31352552 May 15 14:18 /boot/kernel/kernel* 170-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 31352552 Jul 22 19:15 test_file 171-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 31352552 Jul 22 19:15 test_file2 172.Ed 173.Pp 174Downsize 175.Pa test_file 176in 5 Megabytes: 177.Bd -literal -offset indent 178# truncate -s -5M test_file 179ls -l test_file* 180-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 26109672 Jul 22 19:17 test_file 181-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 31352552 Jul 22 19:15 test_file2 182.Ed 183.Sh SEE ALSO 184.Xr dd 1 , 185.Xr touch 1 , 186.Xr truncate 2 187.Sh STANDARDS 188The 189.Nm 190utility conforms to no known standards. 191.Sh HISTORY 192The 193.Nm 194utility first appeared in 195.Fx 4.2 . 196.Sh AUTHORS 197The 198.Nm 199utility was written by 200.An Sheldon Hearn Aq Mt sheldonh@starjuice.net . 201