SPLIT(1)

🎀 NAME 🎀

Okay bestie, welcome to the SPLIT(1) page from the General Commands Manual 💖 This is split — it creates output files containing consecutive or interleaved sections of input. Periodt.

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

split [OPTION]... [INPUT [PREFIX]]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Create output files containing consecutive or interleaved sections of input. That’s the whole vibe: it’s giving “slice the input into pieces,” and the details live below 🔥.

✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -b, --bytes <SIZE> — put SIZE bytes per output file.
• -C, --line-bytes <SIZE> — put at most SIZE bytes of lines per output file.
• -l, --lines <NUMBER> — put NUMBER lines/records per output file ([default: 1000]).
• -n, --number <CHUNKS> — generate CHUNKS output files; see the explanation below.
• --additional-suffix <SUFFIX> — additional SUFFIX to append to output file names ([default: ], the empty suffix).
• --filter <COMMAND> — write to shell COMMAND; file name is $FILE (Currently not implemented for Windows).
• -e, --elide-empty-files — do not generate empty output files with -n.
• -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.
• -a, --suffix-length <N> — generate suffixes of length N (default 2).
• --verbose — print a diagnostic just before each output file is opened.
• -t, --separator <SEP> — use SEP instead of newline as the record separator; '\0' (zero) specifies the NUL character.
• -h, --help — Print help.
• -V, --version — Print version.
• [input] — default - ([default: -]).
• [prefix] — default x ([default: x]).

🌈 EXTRA 🌈

Output fixed-size pieces of INPUT to PREFIXaa, PREFIXab, ...; default size is 1000, and default PREFIX is 'x'. With no INPUT, or when INPUT is -, read standard input.

The SIZE argument is an integer and optional unit (example: 10K is 10*1024). Units are K,M,G,T,P,E,Z,Y,R,Q (powers of 1024) or KB,MB,... (powers of 1000). Binary prefixes can be used, too: KiB=K, MiB=M, and so on.

CHUNKS may be:

• N — split into N files based on size of input
• K/N — output Kth of N to stdout
• l/N — split into N files without splitting lines/records
• l/K/N — output Kth of N to stdout without splitting lines/records
• r/N — like 'l' but use round robin distribution
• r/K/N — likewise but only output Kth of N to stdout

👑 VERSION 👑

v(uutils coreutils) 0.12.0

Later bestie — this SPLIT(1) page is from v(uutils coreutils) 0.12.0, dated 2026-09-17. Slay and stay iconic 💅✨