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TRUNCATE

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: September 2017
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NAME

truncate - shrink or extend the size of a file to the specified size

SYNOPSIS

truncate ,OPTION/... ,FILE/...

DESCRIPTION

Shrink or extend the size of each FILE to the specified size

A FILE argument that does not exist is created.

If a FILE is larger than the specified size, the extra data is lost. If a FILE is shorter, it is extended and the extended part (hole) reads as zero bytes.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

-c, --no-create: do not create any files
-o, --io-blocks: treat SIZE as number of IO blocks instead of bytes
-r, --reference=,RFILE/: base size on RFILE
-s, --size=,SIZE/: set or adjust the file size by SIZE bytes
--help: display this help and exit
--version: output version information and exit

The SIZE argument is an integer and optional unit (example: 10K is 10*1024). Units are K,M,G,T,P,E,Z,Y (powers of 1024) or KB,MB,... (powers of 1000).

SIZE may also be prefixed by one of the following modifying characters: '+' extend by, '-' reduce by, '<' at most, '>' at least, '/' round down to multiple of, '%' round up to multiple of.

AUTHOR

Written by Padraig Brady.

REPORTING BUGS

GNU coreutils online help: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report truncate translation bugs to <http://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.