split(1)

Name

split - split a file into pieces

Synopsis

split [-linecount | -l linecount] [-a suffixlength] 
     [file [name]]

split [-b n | nk | nm] [-a suffixlength] [file [name]]

Description

The split utility reads file and writes it in linecount-line pieces into a set of output-files. The name of the first output-file is name with aa appended, and so on lexicographically, up to zz (a maximum of 676 files). The maximum length of name is 2 characters less than the maximum filename length allowed by the filesystem. See statvfs (2). If no output name is given, x is used as the default (output-files will be called xaa, xab, and so forth).

Options

The following options are supported:

−linecount | –l linecount

Number of lines in each piece. Defaults to 1000 lines.

–a suffixlength

Uses suffixlength letters to form the suffix portion of the filenames of the split file. If –a is not specified, the default suffix length is 2. If the sum of the name operand and the suffixlength option-argument would create a filename exceeding NAME_MAX bytes, an error will result; split will exit with a diagnostic message and no files will be created.

–b n

Splits a file into pieces n bytes in size.

–b nk

Splits a file into pieces n*1024 bytes in size.

–b nm

Splits a file into pieces n*1 048 576 bytes in size.

Operands

The following operands are supported:

file

The path name of the ordinary file to be split. If no input file is given or file is −, the standard input will be used.

name

The prefix to be used for each of the files resulting from the split operation. If no name argument is given, x will be used as the prefix of the output files. The combined length of the basename of prefix and suffixlength cannot exceed NAME_MAX bytes. See OPTIONS.

Usage

See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of split when encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2³¹ bytes).

Environment Variables

See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables that affect the execution of split: LANG, LC_ALL , LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES, and NLSPATH.

Exit Status

The following exit values are returned:

0

Successful completion.

>0

An error occurred.

Attributes

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

ATTRIBUTE TYPE ATTRIBUTE VALUE Availability system/core-os CSI Enabled Interface Stability Committed Standard See standards(5).

See also

csplit(1), statvfs(2), attributes(5), environ(5), largefile(5), standards(5)