truncate(1) — Linux manual page

TRUNCATE(1)                   User Commands                   TRUNCATE(1)

NAME         top

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

SYNOPSIS         top

       truncate OPTION... FILE...

DESCRIPTION         top

       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         top

       Written by Padraig Brady.

REPORTING BUGS         top

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

COPYRIGHT         top

       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.

SEE ALSO         top

       dd(1), truncate(2), ftruncate(2)

       Full documentation
       <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/truncate>
       or available locally via: info '(coreutils) truncate invocation'

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the coreutils (basic file, shell and text
       manipulation utilities) project.  Information about the project
       can be found at ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/⟩.  If you
       have a bug report for this manual page, see
       ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/⟩.  This page was obtained
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GNU coreutils 9.7               April 2025                    TRUNCATE(1)

Pages that refer to this page: fallocate(1),  truncate(2),  swapon(8)

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