SPLIT(1)

📦
version 9.12 · 29 versions
, in arch rolling

💖 SPLIT(1) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the split page from the User Commands manual — yes it's the one that ✨ slices your files into lil baby pieces ✨ and honestly? iconic behaviour. let's get into it 🎀

🌸 NAME 🌸

split — split a file into pieces. that's it. that's the whole job. and it ate 💅

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

split [OPTION]... [FILE [PREFIX]]

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so basically: it outputs pieces of FILE to PREFIXaa, PREFIXab, ... and so on forever until your file runs out. the default size is 1000 lines, and the default PREFIX is 'x'. no cap 🫶

if you give it no FILE, or if FILE is -, it reads from standard input. shy king behaviour, we love it 😌

real talk: mandatory arguments to long options are also mandatory for the short options. that's not a vibe, that's a rule 💀

👑 OPTIONS 👑

  • -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 🧚

the SIZE argument is an integer plus an optional unit (example: 10K is 10*1024). units are:

  • K, M, G, T, P, E, Z, Y, R, Q — these are powers of 1024
  • KB, MB, ... — these are powers of 1000

and yes, binary prefixes work too: KiB=K, MiB=M, and so on. pick your fighter, they're all valid 💜

🍓 CHUNKS may be:

  • N — split into N files based on size of input
  • K/N — output Kth of N to standard output
  • l/N — split into N files without splitting lines/records
  • l/K/N — output Kth of N to standard output without splitting lines/records
  • r/N — like 'l' but use round robin distribution
  • r/K/N — likewise but only output Kth of N to standard output
⚠️ heads up bestie: -n (except -nr) will buffer to $TMPDIR, defaulting to /tmp, if the input size cannot easily be determined. it's giving "i need a lil scratch space, don't perceive me" 🙈

🌈 AUTHOR 🌈

Written by Torbjorn Granlund and Richard M. Stallman. legends fr fr 👑

💌 REPORTING BUGS 💌

Copyright © 2026 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. (yes that's the dramatic part, don't skip it 😭)

🦄 SEE ALSO 🦄

and that's the whole page, bestie!! this was GNU coreutils 9.12, dated September 2026 — go forth and split responsibly 💖✨🎀🦋

📦 where this page comes from