January 26, 2005 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:

Xo
  / regexp / [+ | -[.blm Pp 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.

Xo
  % regexp % [+ | -[.blm Pp 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 pattern, 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).

### 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 1003.1-2004 (``POSIX.1'') .

### HISTORY

A csplit command appeared in PWB UNIX.

### BUGS

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