Hi Jim, > One possibility is to stick with the existing long option names, > but let an argument of the form "K/N" evoke the new semantics: > > --bytes=K/N extract the K'th of N portions (byte-oriented) > --lines=K/N extract the K'th of N portions (line-oriented) > While this little split project started from the extract Kth of N syntax, BSD's -n option is split a file into N equal pieces. Hence we actually have four syntaxes to cover: division by bytes and division by lines, into N equal chunks in output files, and extract the Kth of N equal chunksto stdout.
Given that, I can't help but feel there should be more similarity between the two equal chunk options, than an equal chunk option and a size-in-bytes or size-in-lines option. I feel the most elegant way, like i stated earlier, is -nl and -nb. As Padraig said, it's impossible as one option, but perhaps we can do something like ls's -lh option, where -h extends -l?
