I had to send a large file (about 100MB) to a client for analysis. They did not have an anonymous ftp server so I had to figure a way to e-mail the file to them and then have a way to put it back together.
I found the split command very useful. I use Linux when I can but have installed Cygwin on my Windows PC to get the same functionality.
Here is a way to break the file into 5 megabyte chunks:
# split -b 8m veryLargeInputFile
This instance splits veryLargeInputFile 8MB segments named xaa xab xac…xap.
Now put the file back together at the distant end:
# cat xaa xab xac xad xae xaf xag xah xai xaj > veryLargeInputFile
or
# cat * >veryLargeInputFile
Note: ensure xa* are the only files in the directory when using the wildcard
For ASCII files: Split lines — This example splits a document into 1000 line segments.
# split -l 1000 veryLargeTextFile
Use the same process to put the file back together again.
Note: For larger files, find a ftp server or make your filesize increments bigger.
Split options
-b ## — replace ## with the number of bytes you want in a file
-C ## — replace ## with the number of SIZE bytes of lines per output file
-l ## — replace ## with the number of lines per file.
-d — use numeric suffixes for output files instead of alphabetic
Tags: Utilities