Currently using version 5.2.1 of coreutils 'split' command produces files with 'intelligent' suffixes. That is, the number of letters (or digits) required is based on the known number of output files that will be required.
An OLD version of split (and I dont know which one becuase I dont have it anymore) used 'dumb' suffixes. That is, it would start with aa, ab, ac, ..., ba, bb, bc, ... util it got to zz and then would jump to zzaa, zzab, zzac, ... etc and then on to zzaaaa, zzaaab, zzaaac, etc... While the OLD version may have been annoying, the behavior had two distinct advantages: FIRST, corresponding sections of files, regardless of the overall file size, would have the same suffixes. SECOND, the OLD version of split was capable of reading an arbitrary stream of input from the stdin, where as the NEW version complains when it gets to zz that output suffixes are exhausted (and fails). A final problem is that there does not appear to be a way to get the NEW version to behave like the OLD version. So an application created years ago with the OLD version which used the suffixes as a reference for corresponding data tags can no longer be augmented without rebuilding the entire related database. It would be HIGHLY convenient if split could be made to operate in the OLD non-presumptive manner for creating suffixes, at least for the "split -N - prefix." stdin invocation. I can provide more detail if it is helpful. I hope that I have made the difficulty clear enough. Thanks for considering. -roger ___________________________ Roger J. McNichols, Ph.D. Chief Scientist BioTex, Inc. 8058 El Rio St. Houston, TX 77054 713.741.0111 (o) 713.741.0122 (f) 832.338.4371 (m)
