head (Unix)
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head is a program on Unix and Unix-like systems used to display the first few lines of a text file or piped data. The command syntax is:
head [options] <file_name>
By default, head will print the first 10 lines of its input to the standard output. The number of lines printed may be changed with a command line option. The following example shows the first 20 lines of filename:
head -n 20 filename
This displays the first 5 lines of all files starting with foo:
head -n 5 foo*
Some versions omit the n and just let you say -5.
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[edit] Flags
-c <x number of bytes> Copy first x number of bytes.
[edit] Other
Many early versions of Unix did not have this command, and so documentation and books had sed do this job:
sed 5q foo
This says to print 5 lines, then quit.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- head manual page from GNU coreutils.
- FreeBSD documentation for head
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