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Name

head - display first few lines of files

Synopsis

head [ -number | -n number ] [ filename... ]

Availability

SUNWcsu

Description

The head utility copies the first number of lines of each filename to the standard output. If no filename is given, head copies lines from the standard input. The default value of number is 10 lines.

When more than one file is specified, the start of each file will look like:

==> filename <==

Thus, a common way to display a set of short files, identifying each one, is:

example% head -9999 filename1 filename2 ...

Options

The following options are supported:
-n number
The first number lines of each input file will be copied to standard output. The number option-argument must be a positive decimal integer.
-number
The number argument is a positive decimal integer with the same effect as the -n number option.

If no options are specified, head will act as if -n 10 had been specified.

Operands

The following operand is supported:
file
A path name of an input file. If no file operands are specified, the standard input will be used.

Examples

To write the first ten lines of all files (except those with a leading period) in the directory:
example% head *

Environment

See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables that affect the execution of head: LC_CTYPE , LC_MESSAGES , and NLSPATH .

Exit Status

The following exit values are returned:
  1. Successful completion.
    >0
    An error occurred.

    See Also

    cat(1) , more(1) , pg(1) , tail(1) , environ(5)

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