HEAD(1) BSD Reference Manual HEAD(1)NAMEhead - display first few lines of files
SYNOPSIShead [-count | -n count] [file ...]
DESCRIPTION
The head utility copies the first count lines of each specified file to
the standard output. If no files are named, head copies lines from the
standard input. If count is omitted, it defaults to 10.
The options are as follows:
-count | -n count
Copy the first count lines of each input file to the standard
output. count must be a positive decimal integer.
If more than one file is specified, head precedes the output of each file
with the following, in order to distinguish the head of each file:
==> file <==
EXAMPLES
To display the first 500 lines of the file foo:
$ head-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-500 foo | tail -1
SEE ALSOcat(1), less(1), more(1), tail(1)STANDARDS
The historic command line syntax is supported by this implementation.
The head utility conforms to IEEE Std 1003.2-1992 ("POSIX.2").
HISTORY
The head utility appeared in 3.0BSD.
MirOS BSD #10-current July 14, 1993 1