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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 sparse 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,R,Q (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.

AUTHOR

Written by Padraig Brady.

REPORTING BUGS

GNU coreutils online help: [https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/] Report any translation bugs to [https://translationproject.org/team/]

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'

Packaged by Debian (9.7-3) Copyright © 2025 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.