Hi.

I have a single text file and I need to split the
contents in different files. For example,

Original file
line1 > abcabcabcabca
line2 > cdcdcdcdcdcdc
line3 > efefefefefefefef
line4 > fgfgfgfgfgfgfgfg
line5 > ghghghghghghg
line 6 > trtrtrtrtrtrtrtrtr

Does someone know how to put lines 1-3 in
file1 and lins 4-6 in file2 ?

Thanks,

Serg.

awk '
NR <= 3 { print $0 >> "fil1" ; next }
{ print $0 >> "file2"}
' file

or


head -3 file > file1
tail +4 file > file2

thanks a lot !

If the input file has, let's say, 200 lines and
we need to split it over 100 different output files
(each one with 2 lines), how could I do it ?

Thanks again,

Serg

split -l 2 input_file

I'm not sure about the option though - do "man split" if it doesn't work.

Thanks, N_I !!!

Ok. I realized that SPLIT is very neat but it does not give control over
the output file names.

If my original text file has 100 lines and I use split,
it wil generate output file names like

output_aa
output_ab
output_ac
output_ad
...
output_zz
...

Help... someone ?

You can split the file with awk :
This awk program split input_file in files of SIZE lines.
The generated files are named FILE_1, FILE_2, ....., FILE_123 , ...

Now if it were me, I'd put the AWK programming part into a separate ".awk" file (e.g. splitemup.awk) and refer to it on the command line instead of putting the program literally into quotes. I simply find things easier to manage that way, e.g.:
awk splitemup.awk SIZE=5 FILE=split input_file
(referring to a previous post in this thread).

But AWK usually is the tool de jour for requests like these. It's designed for line-by-line processing and splitting-up of text files and it can do the job in all sorts of different ways.

As you can see from the recently-posted examples, AWK programs consist of a series of rules:

pattern_to_match or condition { actions to execute in this case }

Conditions cited in the examples below include NR==1 ("the record-number is '1'") or (NR % SIZE) == 0 ("the record-number is an even multiple of SIZE, which is defined on the command-line in the example to be equal to 5"). The final rule in the example contains no condition at all and so it is always executed.

Not surprisingly, AWK's condition-testing abilities are considerable. String patterns called regular expressions (drop that term within a Unix-geek's earshot only at your own peril!) allow all sorts of pattern-recognition and string-extraction to be done very easily. (And if you document them thoroughly enough at the time, you can actually remember what the patterns mean!)

You can therefore use this tool in a lot of useful ways; for example, if a legacy application produces a "printed report" that you can direct to a file, you can cabbage data out of the report line-by-line. (Sometimes the only way to get what you need.) It's "definitely a tool to get to know," and it's readily downloadable for all kinds of platforms (even ... ... Windows!).

I think you meant...

awk -f splitemup.awk SIZE=5 FILE=split input_file

Also, it is better IMHO to create the awk script as an executable file with the header '#!/usr/bin/awk -f' (change the path to where your awk is located). You can then call it as you woudl any other script (without the awk -f). This way the script can be run from the kernel saving on execution time.

e.g.

#!/usr/bin/awk -f
BEGIN{print "Hello World!"}

I was out of town.
Thanks for the posts. It all worked fine so far !!!