xref: /netbsd-src/usr.bin/split/split.1 (revision d710132b4b8ce7f7cccaaf660cb16aa16b4077a0)
1.\"	$NetBSD: split.1,v 1.10 2003/06/10 16:57:05 bjh21 Exp $
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34.\"	@(#)split.1	8.3 (Berkeley) 4/16/94
35.\"
36.Dd June 10, 2003
37.Dt SPLIT 1
38.Os
39.Sh NAME
40.Nm split
41.Nd split a file into pieces
42.Sh SYNOPSIS
43.Nm
44.Op Fl a Ar suffix_length
45.Op Fl b Ar byte_count[k|m]
46.Op Fl l Ar line_count
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 or absent,
57.Nm
58reads from the standard input.
59.Pp
60The options are as follows:
61.Bl -tag -width Ds
62.It Fl a
63Use
64.Ar suffix_length
65letters to form the suffix of the file name.
66.It Fl b
67Create smaller files
68.Ar byte_count
69bytes in length.
70If
71.Dq Li k
72is appended to the number, the file is split into
73.Ar byte_count
74kilobyte pieces.
75If
76.Dq Li m
77is appended to the number, the file is split into
78.Ar byte_count
79megabyte pieces.
80.It Fl l
81Create smaller files
82.Ar n
83lines in length.
84.El
85.Pp
86If additional arguments are specified, the first is used as the name
87of the input file which is to be split.
88If a second additional argument is specified, it is used as a prefix
89for the names of the files into which the file is split.
90In this case, each file into which the file is split is named by the
91prefix followed by a lexically ordered suffix using
92.Ar suffix_length
93characters in the range
94.Dq Li a-z .
95If
96.Fl a
97is not specified, two letters are used as the suffix.
98.Pp
99If the
100.Ar name
101argument is not specified, the file is split into lexically ordered
102files named with prefixes in the range of
103.Dq Li x-z
104and with suffixes as above.
105.Sh HISTORY
106A
107.Nm
108command appeared in
109.At v6 .
110The
111.Fl a
112option was introduce in
113.Nx 2.0 .
114.Sh BUGS
115For historical reasons, if you specify
116.Ar name ,
117.Nm
118can only create 676 separate
119files.
120The default naming convention allows 2028 separate files.
121The
122.Fl a
123option can be used to work around this limitation.
124