xref: /openbsd-src/usr.bin/split/split.1 (revision a28daedfc357b214be5c701aa8ba8adb29a7f1c2)
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2.\"	$NetBSD: split.1,v 1.5 1994/12/21 08:20:35 jtc Exp $
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31.\"	@(#)split.1	8.3 (Berkeley) 4/16/94
32.\"
33.Dd $Mdocdate: February 8 2009 $
34.Dt SPLIT 1
35.Os
36.Sh NAME
37.Nm split
38.Nd split a file into pieces
39.Sh SYNOPSIS
40.Nm split
41.Op Fl a Ar suffix_length
42.br
43.Oo
44.Fl b
45.Sm off
46.Ar byte_count Op Cm k \*(Ba m
47.Sm on
48.No \*(Ba Fl l Ar line_count
49.No \*(Ba Fl p Ar pattern
50.Oc
51.Op Ar file Op Ar name
52.Sh DESCRIPTION
53The
54.Nm
55utility reads the given
56.Ar file ,
57or standard input if no file is specified,
58and breaks it up into files of 1000 lines each.
59.Ar file
60itself is not altered.
61.Pp
62The options are as follows:
63.Bl -tag -width Ds
64.It Fl a Ar suffix_length
65Use
66.Ar suffix_length
67letters to form the suffix of the file name
68(see below).
69The default suffix length is 2.
70.It Xo
71.Fl b
72.Sm off
73.Ar byte_count
74.Op Cm k \*(Ba m
75.Sm on
76.Xc
77Create files
78.Ar byte_count
79bytes in length.
80If
81.Sq k
82is appended to the number, the file is split into
83.Ar byte_count
84kilobyte pieces.
85If
86.Sq m
87is appended to the number, the file is split into
88.Ar byte_count
89megabyte pieces.
90.It Fl l Ar line_count
91Create files
92.Ar line_count
93lines in length.
94.It Fl p Ar pattern
95The file is split whenever an input line matches
96.Ar pattern ,
97which is interpreted as an extended regular expression.
98The matching line will be the first line of the next output file.
99This option is incompatible with the
100.Fl b
101and
102.Fl l
103options.
104.El
105.Pp
106If
107.Ar name
108is specified,
109it is used as a prefix
110for the names of the files into which the file is split.
111In this case, each file into which the file is split is named by the
112prefix followed by a lexically ordered suffix using
113.Ar suffix_length
114characters in the range
115.Dq a-z .
116.Pp
117If the
118.Ar name
119argument is not specified, the file is split into lexically ordered
120files named with the prefixes
121.Sq x ,
122.Sq y ,
123and
124.Sq z .
125.Sh SEE ALSO
126.Xr csplit 1 ,
127.Xr re_format 7
128.Sh STANDARDS
129The
130.Nm
131utility is compliant with the
132.St -p1003.1-2008
133specification.
134.Pp
135The flag
136.Op Fl p
137is an extension to that specification.
138.Pp
139The use of
140.Sq y
141and
142.Sq z
143prefixes (in addition to the standard
144.Sq x )
145in the absence of a
146.Ar name
147parameter is an
148.Ox
149extension.
150.Sh HISTORY
151A
152.Nm
153command appeared in
154.At v3 .
155.Sh BUGS
156The maximum line length for matching patterns is 65536.
157