truncate — shrink or extend the size of a file to the specified size
Examples (TL;DR)
-
Set a size of 10 GB to an exsting file, or create a new file with the specified size:
truncate -s 10G filename -
Extend the file size by 50M, fill with holes (which reads as zero bytes):
truncate -s +50M filename -
Shrink the file by 2GiB, by removing data from the end of file:
truncate -s -2G {{filename}
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). Binary prefixes can be used, too: KiB=K, MiB=M, and so on.
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.
Reporting Bugs
GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://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.
See Also
dd(1), truncate(2), ftruncate(2)
Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/truncate>
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) truncate invocation'
Referenced By
fallocate(1), swapon(8), truncate(2), virt-resize(1), virt-sparsify(1).