Feature request: "split --first <size>" to affect first output file

[Dave Turner]

Hi,

Tape drives and their media are large and expensive so I use writeable
DVDs for my backups instead. GNU tar can write an archive across
multiple tapes, using up any remaining space on one tape before moving
to the next, but it cannot do the same on a DVD.

A possible solution is to use 'split' to cut up a backup into smaller files
and distribute them across DVDs: the expected wastage is half the chosen size
of the parts, but going for low-wastage means that the number of files so
generated can be unreasonably large.

The correct solution seems to me to add a --first option to split so
that the first output file neatly fills up the remaining space on the
current medium, and the other output files (if any) fill up new media.

I have a patch that achieves this against commit f325d180 in the
coreutils git repo. If it would be appreciated then please let me know
where to send it. This patch will not be encumbered by any copyright
issues as I did it on my own time and am happy to hand it over to GNU.

Cheers,

Dave