How can I split a file into several smaller pieces?

Release Found: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4

Solution:
Cutting down or splitting a file to several smaller pieces have great benefits. A large file split into several smaller files can easilly fit in a CD or floppy disk or even transferred over the network. Splitting the file is possible using the split command.

Below is an example on how to use the split command:

Using split on a 5.3MB image.iso file:

split -b 1400k image.iso

It will generate 4 files with the following file sizes:

1404k xaa
1404k xab
1404k xac
1208k xad

To recreate the file, the cat command can be
used.

cat xa* > new-image.iso

The split and cat commands are provided by the coreutils package. Once the new new-image.iso file is restored, its possible to delete the other split files.

Note: To verify that the file has been correctly restored, use the command md5sum before and after splitting the file. Syntax:

md5sum [filename]

contributed by Michael Napolis

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This entry was posted by The editorial team on Thursday, January 11th, 2007 at 2:00 am and is filed under tips and tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.