Splitting and merging files

Problem

We want to split a big file into smaller files and join them back later to the original file.

Solution

Use split to split file easily

    # Default split will create xaa, xab, etc files
    split <FILE>
    > xaa
    > xab
    > xac
    > xad

    # Split with fixed number of files, numeric suffix of 3 digits, and prefix
    split <FILE> -n 10 -a 3 -d <PREFIX>

    # Split with fixed file size, numeric suffix of 3 digits, and prefix
    split <FILE> --bytes=1000 -a 3 -d <PREFIX>

To merge splitted files, simply cat them together

    cat prefix* > <NEWFILENAME>