head [OPTION]... [FILE]...

Options

In the above options, num may have a multiplier suffix:

...and so on for T, P, E, Z, Y.

head myfile.txt

Display the first ten lines of myfile.txt.

head -15 myfile.txt

Display the first fifteen lines of myfile.txt.

head myfile.txt myfile2.txt

Display the first ten lines of both myfile.txt and myfile2.txt, with a header before each that indicates the file name.

head -n 5 myfile.txt myfile2.txt

Displays only the first 5 lines of both files.

head -c 20 myfile.txt

Will output only the first twenty bytes (characters) of myfile.txt. Newlines count as a single character, so if head prints out a newline, it will count it as a byte.

head -n 5K myfile.txt

Displays the first 5,000 lines of myfile.txt.

head -c 6M myfile.txt

Displays the first six megabytes.

head -

If a dash is specified for the file name, head reads from standard input rather than a regular file.

head myfile.txt myfile2.txt -

Display the first ten lines of myfile.txt, myfile2.txt, and standard input.

head -n 4 *.txt

Display the first four lines of every file in the working directory whose file name ends in the extension .txt.

head -n 4 -q *.txt

Same as the previous command, but uses quiet (-q) output, which will not print a header before the lines of each file.