head Command

Purpose:

Displays the first few lines or bytes of a file or files.

Syntax:

head [ -Count | -c Number | -n Number ] [ File ... ]

Description:

The head command writes to standard output a specified number of lines or bytes
of each of the specified files, or of the standard input. If no flag is
specified with the head command, the first 10 lines are displayed by default.
The File parameter specifies the names of the input files. An input file must
be a text file. When more than one file is specified, the start of each file
will look like the following:

==> filename <==

To display a set of short files, identifying each one, enter:

example% head -9999 filename1 filename2...

Flags:

-Count Specifies the number of lines from the beginning of each specified file
to be displayed. The Count variable must be a positive decimal integer. This
flag is equivalent to the -n Number flag, but should not be used if portability
is a consideration.

-c Number Specifies the number of bytes to display. The Number variable must be
a positive decimal integer.

-n Number Specifies the number of lines from the beginning of each specified
file to be displayed. The number variable must be a positive decimal integer.
This flag is equivalent to the -Count flag.

Exit Status

This command returns the following exit values:

0 Successful completion.

>0 An error occurred.

Examples:

To display the first five lines of the Test file, enter:

head -5 Test

OR

head -n 5 Test