Here a version that works without running into the open file limit. It's an awk script and should be in a file:

Code:

BEGIN {
        print RF_CNT;
        print LN;
}

(NR <= RF_CNT) {                # output first records
                a[NR] = "file" NR;
                print >a[NR];
                close(a[NR]);   # expensive but stays under fopen limit
}

((i = NR%LN +1) in a) {         # see if this line is a candidate
                print >>a[i];   # add it
                close(a[i]);    # close it to stay under fopen limit
}

Use this command line for it:

Code:

awk -f num.awk -v RF_CNT=20 -v LN=2000 num.txt

The value of RF_CNT is the number of files to make. The first line of each file will contain line N of the input file (ie. file 4 contains line 4 of the input file).

The value of LN is the line offset/modulo to determine if line need to go to a file and which file.

num.txt is input file. I used a file with the numbers 1-8000 on each line.

It opens and closes the output files to avoid the open file limits...

The BEGIN clause is just to confirm inputs and can be removed....