From c30166dd977093e348bf81d273599fc24769099a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: =?utf-8?q?P=C3=A1draig=20Brady?=
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 17:01:31 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] Clarifications for the info page for the split command
* doc/coreutils.texi (split invocation):
The descriptions of the split command options were hard to
understand, so hopefully this clarifies them somewhat.
Signed-off-by: Pádraig Brady
---
doc/ChangeLog | 5 +++++
doc/coreutils.texi | 45 ++++++++++++++++++++++++---------------------
2 files changed, 29 insertions(+), 21 deletions(-)
diff --git a/doc/ChangeLog b/doc/ChangeLog
index 5043a8f..c603eb7 100644
--- a/doc/ChangeLog
+++ b/doc/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+2007-11-21 Pádraig Brady
+
+ * coreutils.texi (split invocation): Improve the
+ descriptions of the split command options.
+
2007-10-05 Jim Meyering
* coreutils.texi (chroot invocation): List two systems on which
diff --git a/doc/coreutils.texi b/doc/coreutils.texi
index a733292..230f208 100644
--- a/doc/coreutils.texi
+++ b/doc/coreutils.texi
@@ -2789,12 +2789,6 @@ The program accepts the following options. Also see @ref{Common options}.
@table @samp
-@item -a @var{length}
-@itemx --suffix-length=@var{length}
-@opindex -a
-@opindex --suffix-length
-Use suffixes of length @var{length}. The default @var{length} is 2.
-
@item -l @var{lines}
@itemx --lines=@var{lines}
@opindex -l
@@ -2805,27 +2799,36 @@ For compatibility @command{split} also supports an obsolete
option syntax @option{-@var{lines}}. New scripts should use @option{-l
@var{lines}} instead.
-@item -b @var{bytes}
-@itemx --bytes=@var{bytes}
+@item -b @var{size}
+@itemx --bytes=@var{size}
@opindex -b
@opindex --bytes
-Put the first @var{bytes} bytes of @var{input} into each output file.
-Appending @samp{b} multiplies @var{bytes} by 512,
-@samp{kB} by 1000, @samp{K} by 1024,
-@samp{MB} by 1000*1000, @samp{M} by 1024*1024,
-@samp{GB} by 1000*1000*1000, @samp{GB} by 1024*1024*1024,
-and so on for @samp{T}, @samp{P}, @samp{E}, @samp{Z}, and @samp{Y}.
+Put @var{size} bytes of @var{input} into each output file.
+@var{size} is a number which may be optionally followed by these
+multiplicative suffixes:
+@example
+@samp{b} => 512 ("blocks")
+@samp{KB} => 1000 (KiloBytes)
+@samp{K} => 1024 (KibiBytes)
+@samp{MB} => 1000*1000 (MegaBytes)
+@samp{M} => 1024*1024 (MebiBytes)
+@end example
+and so on for @samp{G}, @samp{T}, @samp{P}, @samp{E}, @samp{Z}, and @samp{Y}.
-@item -C @var{bytes}
-@itemx --line-bytes=@var{bytes}
+@item -C @var{size}
+@itemx --line-bytes=@var{size}
@opindex -C
@opindex --line-bytes
Put into each output file as many complete lines of @var{input} as
-possible without exceeding @var{bytes} bytes. For lines longer than
-@var{bytes} bytes, put @var{bytes} bytes into each output file until
-less than @var{bytes} bytes of the line are left, then continue
-normally. @var{bytes} has the same format as for the @option{--bytes}
-option.
+possible without exceeding @var{size} bytes. Individual lines longer than
+@var{size} bytes are broken into multiple files.
+@var{size} has the same format as for the @option{--bytes} option.
+
+@item -a @var{length}
+@itemx --suffix-length=@var{length}
+@opindex -a
+@opindex --suffix-length
+Use suffixes of length @var{length}. The default @var{length} is 2.
@item -d
@itemx --numeric-suffixes
--
1.5.3.4