freebsd-dev/usr.bin/split/split.1

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.\"	@(#)split.1	8.3 (Berkeley) 4/16/94
.\" $FreeBSD$
.\"
.Dd April 16, 1994
.Dt SPLIT 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm split
.Nd split a file into pieces
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl a Ar suffix_length
.Op Fl b Ar byte_count[k|m]
.Op Fl l Ar line_count
.Op Fl p Ar pattern
.Op Ar file Op Ar name
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility reads the given
.Ar file
and breaks it up into files of 1000 lines each.
If
.Ar file
is a single dash
.Pq Sq Fl
or absent,
.Nm
reads from the standard input.
.Pp
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl a
Use
.Ar suffix_length
letters to form the suffix of the file name.
.It Fl b
Create smaller files
.Ar byte_count
bytes in length.
If
.Dq Li k
is appended to the number, the file is split into
.Ar byte_count
kilobyte pieces.
If
.Dq Li m
is appended to the number, the file is split into
.Ar byte_count
megabyte pieces.
.It Fl l
Create smaller files
.Ar n
lines in length.
.It Fl p Ar pattern
The file is split whenever an input line matches
.Ar pattern ,
which is interpreted as an extended regular expression.
The matching line will be the first line of the next output file.
This option is incompatible with the
.Fl b
and
.Fl l
options.
.El
.Pp
If additional arguments are specified, the first is used as the name
of the input file which is to be split.
If a second additional argument is specified, it is used as a prefix
for the names of the files into which the file is split.
In this case, each file into which the file is split is named by the
prefix followed by a lexically ordered suffix using
.Ar suffix_length
characters in the range
.Dq Li a-z .
If
.Fl a
is not specified, two letters are used as the suffix.
.Pp
If the
.Ar name
argument is not specified, the file is split into lexically ordered
files named with prefixes in the range of
.Dq Li x-z
and with suffixes as above.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr csplit 1 ,
.Xr re_format 7
.Sh STANDARDS
The
.Nm
utility conforms to
.St -p1003.1-2001 .
.Sh HISTORY
A
.Nm
command appeared in
.At v3 .
.Sh BUGS
For historical reasons, if you specify
.Ar name ,
.Nm
can only create 676 separate
files.
The default naming convention allows 2028 separate files.
The
.Fl a
option can be used to work around this limitation.
.Pp
The maximum line length for matching patterns is 65536.