Subject: Re: How do I split binaries to manageable chunks
From: Joshua Rosen <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 19:37:34 -0400

Earnie Boyd wrote:

> --- [email-masked] wrote:
> -8<-
> > Well, this looks exactly like the situation that shows the ultimate
> > futility of trying to accomodate MSDOG text files.  How is split to
> > know what type of file it is handling?  Should we embed a copy of
> > file(1) into split?  Stoop down to MSDOG practice and rely on file
> > names?  Or what?
>
> The utility split should just always process in binary mode.

    Given that the `split' utility is meant to split text files, it should
definitely -not- -always- process in binary mode, if only because splitting a
multibyte newline character down the middle, putting part of the `single
character' at the end of one file, and the rest of the character at the
beginning of another file, is probaly not the best of ideas....
    Though, in response to Ian's comments: it might be nice to have to option
of splitting in binary mode, but embedding a version of file(1) into split(1)
really isn't necessary to do that--all that'd be needed is a command-line flag
to run split in binary mode.
    Again, UUEncoding the binary file and then splitting it is an option, too,
but probably not the most desirable, because it adds two steps, every time you
want to go through this procedure, and it gives you a larger file to split.
    As Phil said, one could use dd, but that's sort of cumbersome, so one could
write up a shell script to simplify things, but it probably would be easier to
just code a binary version of split, or, as has already been suggested, change
the mode in the existing version and call it `bsplit' or something.

    Dit I miss anything?
                -Rozzin.

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