Splitting and Merging Files in Linux

Sometimes you may need to backup a 1GB file and all you have are two 700MB CDs. This article will tell you how to split the file in parts and merge them back.

You can split a large file into smaller files using the following command:

split -b 700m <#file_to_split#> parts_

Where <#file_to_split#> is the file you want to split.

The above case file will be split into 700mb each. Assuming we have a 1 GB file two files will be created namely:

parts_1 i.e 700mb
parts_2 i.e 324mb

To merge the files back to original large file the command is:

cat parts_* > <#merge_file_name#>