HEAD(1) BSD General Commands Manual HEAD(1)
NAME
head -- display first lines of a file
SYNOPSIS
head [-n count | -c bytes] [file ...]
DESCRIPTION
This filter displays the first count lines or bytes of each of the specified files, or of the standard input if no files are specified. If
count is omitted it defaults to 10.
If more than a single file is specified, each file is preceded by a header consisting of the string ``==> XXX <=='' where ``XXX'' is the name
of the file.
EXIT STATUS
The head utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
EXAMPLES
To display the first 500 lines of the file foo:
$ head -n 500 foo
head can be used in conjunction with tail(1) in the following way to, for example, display only line 500 from the file foo:
$ head -n 500 foo | tail -n 1
SEE ALSO
tail(1)
HISTORY
The head command appeared in PWB UNIX.
BSD
March 16, 2013 BSD
