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CSPLIT(1)                                BSD General Commands Manual                               CSPLIT(1)

NAME
     csplit -- split files based on context

SYNOPSIS
     csplit [-ks] [-f prefix] [-n number] file args ...

DESCRIPTION
     The csplit utility splits file into pieces using the patterns args.  If file is a dash (`-'), csplit
     reads from standard input.

     The options are as follows:

     -f prefix
             Give created files names beginning with prefix.  The default is ``xx''.

     -k      Do not remove output files if an error occurs or a HUP, INT or TERM signal is received.

     -n number
             Use number of decimal digits after the prefix to form the file name.  The default is 2.

     -s      Do not write the size of each output file to standard output as it is created.

     The args operands may be a combination of the following patterns:

     /regexp/[[+|-]offset]
             Create a file containing the input from the current line to (but not including) the next line
             matching the given basic regular expression.  An optional offset from the line that matched may
             be specified.

     %regexp%[[+|-]offset]
             Same as above but a file is not created for the output.

     line_no
             Create containing the input from the current line to (but not including) the specified line
             number.

     {num}   Repeat the previous pattern the specified number of times.  If it follows a line number pat-tern, pattern,
             tern, a new file will be created for each line_no lines, num times.  The first line of the file
             is line number 1 for historic reasons.

     After all the patterns have been processed, the remaining input data (if there is any) will be written
     to a new file.

     Requesting to split at a line before the current line number or past the end of the file will result in
     an error.

ENVIRONMENT
     The LANG, LC_ALL, LC_COLLATE and LC_CTYPE environment variables affect the execution of csplit as
     described in environ(7).

EXIT STATUS
     The csplit utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

EXAMPLES
     Split the mdoc(7) file foo.1 into one file for each section (up to 20):

           csplit -k foo.1 '%^\.Sh%' '/^\.Sh/' '{20}'

     Split standard input after the first 99 lines and every 100 lines thereafter:

           csplit -k - 100 '{19}'

SEE ALSO
     sed(1), split(1), re_format(7)

STANDARDS
     The csplit utility conforms to IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (``POSIX.1'').

HISTORY
     A csplit command appeared in PWB UNIX.

BUGS
     Input lines are limited to LINE_MAX (2048) bytes in length.

BSD                                           January 26, 2005                                           BSD