Re: Suggestion for split.c

[Paul Eggert]

"Galbraith, Mark" <address@hidden> writes:

> My suggestion is to use an option like "-H n" (or other option
> letter as may be determined by the maintainer of split.c) to specify
> the number of rows that constitute the "Header" of the source file. 
> A maximum number of rows would be need to be determined.

No, the general GNU philosophy is that there should be no arbitrary limit.
Just xmalloc as much space as you need.

Some comments:

Shouldn't 'n' count bytes (not lines) if the -C or -b option is used?

I assume the operands of -b, -C, and -l include the output headers in
size calculations?  If so, what if the header size is greater than the
sizes indicated by those operands?

Is there a similar need for a file tail option?  If not, why not?

And last but not least -- is this functionality really appropriate for
a low-level bulk tool like 'split'?  One might argue that it's more
appropriate to write a Python or Perl script....


> Pointers to any list archives would be appreciated.

You can see previous posts at:

http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-coreutils/