SPLIT

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: March 2021
Page Index

NAME

split - split a file into pieces

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 (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/>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.