split - Man Page

split a file into pieces

Examples (TL;DR)

Synopsis

split [OPTION]... [FILE [PREFIX]]

Description

Output pieces of FILE to PREFIXaa, PREFIXab, ...; default size is 1000 lines, and default PREFIX is 'x'.

With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

-a,  --suffix-length=N

generate suffixes of length N (default 2)

--additional-suffix=SUFFIX

append an additional SUFFIX to file names

-b,  --bytes=SIZE

put SIZE bytes per output file

-C,  --line-bytes=SIZE

put at most SIZE bytes of records per output file

-d

use numeric suffixes starting at 0, not alphabetic

--numeric-suffixes[=FROM]

same as -d, but allow setting the start value

-x

use hex suffixes starting at 0, not alphabetic

--hex-suffixes[=FROM]

same as -x, but allow setting the start value

-e,  --elide-empty-files

do not generate empty output files with '-n'

--filter=COMMAND

write to shell COMMAND; file name is $FILE

-l,  --lines=NUMBER

put NUMBER lines/records per output file

-n,  --number=CHUNKS

generate CHUNKS output files; see explanation below

-t,  --separator=SEP

use SEP instead of newline as the record separator; '\0' (zero) specifies the NUL character

-u,  --unbuffered

immediately copy input to output with '-n r/...'

--verbose

print a diagnostic just before each output file is opened

--help

display this help and exit

--version

output version information and exit

The SIZE argument is an integer and optional unit (example: 10K is 10*1024). Units are K,M,G,T,P,E,Z,Y,R,Q (powers of 1024) or KB,MB,... (powers of 1000). Binary prefixes can be used, too: KiB=K, MiB=M, and so on.

CHUNKS may be

N

split into N files based on size of input

K/N

output Kth of N to stdout

l/N

split into N files without splitting lines/records

l/K/N

output Kth of N to stdout without splitting lines/records

r/N

like 'l' but use round robin distribution

r/K/N

likewise but only output Kth of N to stdout

Author

Written by Torbjorn Granlund and Richard M. Stallman.

Reporting Bugs

GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>

See Also

Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/split>
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) split invocation'

Referenced By

jigdo-file(1).

January 2024 GNU coreutils 9.4