split

NAME

split - split a file into pieces

SYNOPSIS

split [-b byte_count[k|m]] [-l line_count] [file [name]]

DESCRIPTION

The split(1) utility reads the given file (or standard input if no file is specified) and breaks it up into files of 1000 lines each.

The options are as follows:

-b

Create smaller files byte_count bytes in length. If k is appended to the number, the file is split into byte_count kilobyte pieces. If m is appended to the number, the file is split into byte_count megabyte pieces.

-l

Create smaller files n lines in length.

If additional arguments are specified, the first is used as the name of the input file that 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 in the range of aa-zz.

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

BUGS

For historical reasons, if you specify name, split(1) can only create 676 separate files. The default naming convention allows 2028 separate files.