freebsd man page for head

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