GNU Split: Examples and Reference
Last updated:Table of Contents
- Basic example
- Split file into chunks by number of lines
- Split file into chunks by size (in bytes)
- Split file into N equal-sized chunks
- Split files into N equal-sized chunks without splitting lines
- Rebuild a file from its parts
Split is a very useful tool included in most Linux distributions. It can be used to split large files into smaller parts according to a variety of parameters:
Basic example
Default behaviour is to split file into parts containing 1000 lines
$ split largefile.txt
Split file into chunks by number of lines
For example, have each part have 1 thousand lines:
$ split -l 1000 largefile.txt
Split file into chunks by size (in bytes)
Each chunk will have at most the given size (the last chunk may be smaller).
For example, 10MB
$ split largefile.txt -b 10MB
Split file into N equal-sized chunks
(Each chunk will have totalSize / N size)
For example, divide a large file into 10 parts
This may split files halfway through a line
$ split largefile.txt -n 10
Split files into N equal-sized chunks without splitting lines
Use l/N where N is the number of parts you want. This will only split files at line endings.
For example, divide a large file into 10 parts, each having 1/10 of the lines:
$ split largefile.txt -n l/10
Rebuild a file from its parts
File parts start with x so use cat ./x* > rebuilt_file
$ split largefile.txt
$ ls
xaa xab xac
$ cat ./x* > rebuiltfile.txt