SPLIT(1) BSD General Commands Manual SPLIT(1)

NAME
     sspplliitt - split a file into pieces

SYNOPSIS
     sspplliitt [-bb bytecount[k|m]] [-ll linecount] [-aa suffixlength]
           [file [name]]

DESCRIPTION
     The sspplliitt utility reads the given file (or standard input if no file is
     specified) and breaks it up into files of, by default, 1000 lines each.

     The options are as follows:

     -bb      Create files bytecount bytes in length.  If ``k'' is appended to
             the number, the file is split into bytecount kilobyte pieces.
             If ``m'' is appended to the number, the file is split into
             bytecount megabyte pieces.

     -ll      Create output files n lines in length.

     -aa      Use suffixlength letters to form the suffix portion of the file-
             names of the split file.  If -a is not specified, the default
             suffix length will be two. If the sum of the name operand and the
             suffixlength option-argument would create a filename exceeding
             {NAMEMAX} bytes, an error will occur, and sspplliitt will exit with
             no output files having been created.

     If additional arguments are specified, the first is used as the name of
     the input file which is to be split. A ``-'' character may be used as the
     first argument, to specify that Standard Input is to be used.  If a sec-
     ond 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 lexi-
     cally ordered suffix in the range of ``aa-zz''.  (If suffixlength is
     provided, the suffix will be created using the specified number of char-
     acters, rather than the default of two characters.)

     If the name argument is not specified, the file is split into lexically
     ordered files named in the range of ``xaa-xzz''.

HISTORY     A sspplliitt command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.

BSD                            October 27, 2004                            BSD