STRING-SPLIT0(1)

💅 STRING-SPLIT0(1) — the fish-shell one, bestie ✨

okay so this is a page from the fish-shell manual, and it's all about splitting strings. yes it's string-split0 but like... it's also string split and string split0, we're doing both. buckle up 🎀

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🌸 NAME 🌸

string-split0 — splitting on zero bytes, that's the whole vibe, no cap.

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

string split [(-f | --fields) FIELDS [-a | --allow-empty]] [(-m | --max) MAX] [-n | --no-empty]
             [-q | --quiet] [-r | --right] SEP [STRING ...]
string split0 [(-f | --fields) FIELDS [-a | --allow-empty]] [(-m | --max) MAX] [-n | --no-empty]
              [-q | --quiet] [-r | --right] [STRING ...]

like yes, that's a lot of brackets, but it's giving "choose your own adventure" and honestly we love that 💖

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so string split literally splits each STRING on the separator SEP — and yes, SEP can be an empty string, it's fine, it's allowed, it's iconic 🫶

• -m, --max — if you pass this, at most MAX splits get done on each STRING. that's the cap, periodt.
• -r, --right — this one does the splitting right-to-left. and lowkey? it's only actually useful when you pair it with -m or --max, so don't use it alone and expect magic, bestie 🙈
• -n, --no-empty — empty results get excluded from consideration. like, hello\n\nworld expands to two strings, not three. bye empty field, you will not be missed ✨

Exit status: 0 if at least one split was performed, or 1 otherwise. that's the vibe check, fr fr.

now the fancy part 💅 — use -f or --fields to print out specific fields. FIELDS is a comma-separated string of field numbers and/or spans. each field is one-indexed, and gets printed on separate lines. so if a given field doesn't exist, the command exits with status 1 and does not print anything — unless you used --allow-empty, in which case it's chillin 💀

also see the --delimiter option of the read command, iykyk 👑

string split0 splits each STRING on the zero byte (NUL). options are the same as string split except — plot twist — no separator is given. because the separator is the NUL. it's built in. she doesn't need you to tell her 🌈

split0 has this super important property: its output is not further split when used in a command substitution. meaning the command substitution can produce elements containing newlines. that is the main character energy right there 👑 this is most useful with Unix tools that produce zero bytes, like find -print0 or sort -z. check the split0 examples below, they ate 🔥

be aware though, for real: commandline arguments cannot include NULs. so you probably want to pass to string split0 via a pipe, not a command substitution. don't do the cursed thing, bestie 😭

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💜 EXAMPLES 💜

>_ string split . example.com
example
com

>_ string split -r -m1 / /usr/local/bin/fish
/usr/local/bin
fish

>_ string split '' abc
a
b
c

>_ string split --allow-empty -f1,3-4,5 '' abcd
a
c
d

look at that. clean. slay. 🌸

🍓 NUL Delimited Examples 🍓

>_ # Count files in a directory, without being confused by newlines.
>_ # Note: Don't use `string split0 (find . -print0)`, because arguments cannot include NUL.
>_ count (find . -print0 | string split0)
42

>_ # Sort a list of elements which may contain newlines
>_ set foo beta alpha\ngamma
>_ set foo (string join0 $foo | sort -z | string split0)
>_ string escape $foo[1]
alpha\ngamma

see that 42? iconic. and that alpha\ngamma surviving as one element? chef's kiss 🧚✨

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🎀 Copyright 🎀

fish-shell developers — they made this, we're just vibing with it 🫶

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and that's the whole page, bestie! brought to you by fish-shell, version 4.9, dated Sep 08, 2026 — go split something responsibly 💖🌷⭐