How do I split a file into n no of parts

Question

I have a file contining some no of lines. I want split file into n no.of files with particular names. It doesn't matter how many line present in each file. I just want particular no.of files (say 5). here the problem is the no of lines in the original file keep on changing. So I need to calculate no of lines then just split the files into 5 parts. If possible we have to send each of them into different directories.

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3194349/how-do-i-split-a-file-into-n-no-of-parts

Answer 1

In bash, you can use the split command to split it based on number of lines desired. You can use wc command to figure out how many lines are desired. Here's wc combined with with split into one line.

For example, to split onepiece.log into 5 parts

    split -l$((`wc -l < onepiece.log`/5)) onepiece.log onepiece.split.log -da 4

This will create files like onepiece.split.log0000 ...

Note: bash division rounds down, so if there is a remainder there will be a 6th part file.