csplit(1p) — Linux manual page

PROLOG | NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | OPERANDS | STDIN | INPUT FILES | ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES | ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS | STDOUT | STDERR | OUTPUT FILES | EXTENDED DESCRIPTION | EXIT STATUS | CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS | APPLICATION USAGE | EXAMPLES | RATIONALE | FUTURE DIRECTIONS | SEE ALSO | COPYRIGHT

CSPLIT(1P)              POSIX Programmer's Manual              CSPLIT(1P)

PROLOG         top

       This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The
       Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the
       corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or
       the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

NAME         top

       csplit — split files based on context

SYNOPSIS         top

       csplit [-ks] [-f prefix] [-n number] file arg...

DESCRIPTION         top

       The csplit utility shall read the file named by the file operand,
       write all or part of that file into other files as directed by the
       arg operands, and write the sizes of the files.

OPTIONS         top

       The csplit utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of
       POSIX.1‐2017, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.

       The following options shall be supported:

       -f prefix Name the created files prefix00, prefix01, ..., prefixn.
                 The default is xx00 ...  xxn.  If the prefix argument
                 would create a filename exceeding {NAME_MAX} bytes, an
                 error shall result, csplit shall exit with a diagnostic
                 message, and no files shall be created.

       -k        Leave previously created files intact. By default,
                 csplit shall remove created files if an error occurs.

       -n number Use number decimal digits to form filenames for the file
                 pieces. The default shall be 2.

       -s        Suppress the output of file size messages.

OPERANDS         top

       The following operands shall be supported:

       file      The pathname of a text file to be split. If file is '-',
                 the standard input shall be used.

       Each arg operand can be one of the following:

       /rexp/[offset]
                 A file shall be created using the content of the lines
                 from the current line up to, but not including, the line
                 that results from the evaluation of the regular
                 expression with offset, if any, applied. The regular
                 expression rexp shall follow the rules for basic regular
                 expressions described in the Base Definitions volume of
                 POSIX.1‐2017, Section 9.3, Basic Regular Expressions.
                 The application shall use the sequence "\/" to specify a
                 <slash> character within the rexp.  The optional offset
                 shall be a positive or negative integer value
                 representing a number of lines. A positive integer value
                 can be preceded by '+'.  If the selection of lines from
                 an offset expression of this type would create a file
                 with zero lines, or one with greater than the number of
                 lines left in the input file, the results are
                 unspecified. After the section is created, the current
                 line shall be set to the line that results from the
                 evaluation of the regular expression with any offset
                 applied. If the current line is the first line in the
                 file and a regular expression operation has not yet been
                 performed, the pattern match of rexp shall be applied
                 from the current line to the end of the file.
                 Otherwise, the pattern match of rexp shall be applied
                 from the line following the current line to the end of
                 the file.

       %rexp%[offset]
                 Equivalent to /rexp/[offset], except that no file shall
                 be created for the selected section of the input file.
                 The application shall use the sequence "\%" to specify a
                 <percent-sign> character within the rexp.

       line_no   Create a file from the current line up to (but not
                 including) the line number line_no.  Lines in the file
                 shall be numbered starting at one. The current line
                 becomes line_no.

       {num}     Repeat operand. This operand can follow any of the
                 operands described previously. If it follows a rexp type
                 operand, that operand shall be applied num more times.
                 If it follows a line_no operand, the file shall be split
                 every line_no lines, num times, from that point.

       An error shall be reported if an operand does not reference a line
       between the current position and the end of the file.

STDIN         top

       See the INPUT FILES section.

INPUT FILES         top

       The input file shall be a text file.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES         top

       The following environment variables shall affect the execution of
       csplit:

       LANG      Provide a default value for the internationalization
                 variables that are unset or null. (See the Base
                 Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Section 8.2,
                 Internationalization Variables for the precedence of
                 internationalization variables used to determine the
                 values of locale categories.)

       LC_ALL    If set to a non-empty string value, override the values
                 of all the other internationalization variables.

       LC_COLLATE
                 Determine the locale for the behavior of ranges,
                 equivalence classes, and multi-character collating
                 elements within regular expressions.

       LC_CTYPE  Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences
                 of bytes of text data as characters (for example,
                 single-byte as opposed to multi-byte characters in
                 arguments and input files) and the behavior of character
                 classes within regular expressions.

       LC_MESSAGES
                 Determine the locale that should be used to affect the
                 format and contents of diagnostic messages written to
                 standard error.

       NLSPATH   Determine the location of message catalogs for the
                 processing of LC_MESSAGES.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS         top

       If the -k option is specified, created files shall be retained.
       Otherwise, the default action occurs.

STDOUT         top

       Unless the -s option is used, the standard output shall consist of
       one line per file created, with a format as follows:

           "%d\n", <file size in bytes>

STDERR         top

       The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES         top

       The output files shall contain portions of the original input
       file; otherwise, unchanged.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION         top

       None.

EXIT STATUS         top

       The following exit values shall be returned:

        0    Successful completion.

       >0    An error occurred.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS         top

       By default, created files shall be removed if an error occurs.
       When the -k option is specified, created files shall not be
       removed if an error occurs.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE         top

       None.

EXAMPLES         top

        1. This example creates four files, cobol00 ...  cobol03:

               csplit -f cobol file '/procedure division/' /par5./ /par16./

           After editing the split files, they can be recombined as
           follows:

               cat cobol0[0-3] > file

           Note that this example overwrites the original file.

        2. This example would split the file after the first 99 lines,
           and every 100 lines thereafter, up to 9999 lines; this is
           because lines in the file are numbered from 1 rather than
           zero, for historical reasons:

               csplit -k file  100  {99}

        3. Assuming that prog.c follows the C-language coding convention
           of ending routines with a '}' at the beginning of the line,
           this example creates a file containing each separate C routine
           (up to 21) in prog.c:

               csplit -k prog.c '%main(%'  '/^}/+1' {20}

RATIONALE         top

       The -n option was added to extend the range of filenames that
       could be handled.

       Consideration was given to adding a -a flag to use the alphabetic
       filename generation used by the historical split utility, but the
       functionality added by the -n option was deemed to make alphabetic
       naming unnecessary.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS         top

       None.

SEE ALSO         top

       sed(1p), split(1p)

       The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Chapter 8,
       Environment Variables, Section 9.3, Basic Regular Expressions,
       Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines

COPYRIGHT         top

       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic
       form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information
       Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The
       Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright
       (C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers,
       Inc and The Open Group.  In the event of any discrepancy between
       this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard,
       the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee
       document. The original Standard can be obtained online at
       http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

       Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page
       are most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of
       the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see
       https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .

IEEE/The Open Group                2017                        CSPLIT(1P)

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