head(1)

head -- display first few lines of files

Synopsis

head [-n number] [file . . .]

head [-number] [file . . .]

Description

head copies the first number lines of each file to the standard output. If no file is given, head copies lines from the standard input. The environment variable LC_CTYPE is referenced so that the codesets used in the data are processed correctly. (See LANG on environ(5)). The default value of number is 10 lines.

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

   ==>file<==

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

head -n 9999 file1 file2 ...

Files

/usr/lib/locale/locale/LC_MESSAGES/uxdfm: language-specific message file (see LANG on environ(5)).

References

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

Notices

The -number option has been made obsolete by POSIX. It is recommended that application authors avoid its use in favor of the -n number option.

The length of the input lines is limited to {LINE_MAX} bytes.