xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/truncate/truncate.1 (revision 78373a5faa3bab46d247c10a7059e484bc634504)
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2.\" Copyright (c) 2000 Sheldon Hearn <sheldonh@FreeBSD.org>.
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26.\" $FreeBSD$
27.\"
28.Dd December 19, 2006
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 SEE ALSO
147.Xr dd 1 ,
148.Xr touch 1 ,
149.Xr truncate 2
150.Sh STANDARDS
151The
152.Nm
153utility conforms to no known standards.
154.Sh HISTORY
155The
156.Nm
157utility first appeared in
158.Fx 4.2 .
159.Sh AUTHORS
160The
161.Nm
162utility was written by
163.An Sheldon Hearn Aq Mt sheldonh@starjuice.net .
164