head

head linux command cheatsheet by Thamizhiniyan C S

Introduction

The head command is used to output the first part of files.

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Syntax

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

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Important Flags

Flag	Description
-n num	Prints the first ‘num’ lines instead of the first 10 lines.
-c num	Prints the first ‘num’ bytes from the file specified.
-q	Suppresses printing filenames when more than one file is given.
-v	Prints data from the specified file preceded by its filename.

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Examples

Command	Description
head -n 20 file.txt | tail -10	To print lines between 10 and 20 in file.txt.
ls -t | head -n 3	Pipe the output of ls command to head to show only the three most recently modified files or folders.
ls -t | head -n 3 | sort	Pipe the output of ls command to head and sort to display the three most recently used files or folders in alphabetical order.