head(1) User Commands head(1)NAMEhead - display first few lines of files
SYNOPSIShead [-number | -n number] [filename...]
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 10had been speci‐
fied.
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.
USAGE
See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of head when
encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2**31 bytes).
EXAMPLES
Example 1: Writing the first ten lines of all files
To write the first ten lines of all files (except those with a leading
period) in the directory:
example% head *
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables
that affect the execution of head: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES,
and NLSPATH.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned:
0 Successful completion.
>0 An error occurred.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
│ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Availability │SUNWcsu │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│CSI │enabled │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Interface Stability │Standard │
└─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
SEE ALSOcat(1), more(1), pg(1), tail(1), attributes(5), environ(5), large‐
file(5), standards(5)SunOS 5.10 1 Feb 1995 head(1)
