Content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Man page of HEAD

HEAD

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: June 2025
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NAME

head - output the first part of files

SYNOPSIS

head [,OPTION/]... [,FILE/]...

DESCRIPTION

Print the first 10 lines of each FILE to standard output. With more than one FILE, precede each with a header giving the file name.

With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

-c, --bytes=,[-]NUM/: print the first NUM bytes of each file; with the leading '-', print all but the last NUM bytes of each file
-n, --lines=,[-]NUM/: print the first NUM lines instead of the first 10; with the leading '-', print all but the last NUM lines of each file
-q, --quiet, --silent: never print headers giving file names
-v, --verbose: always print headers giving file names
-z, --zero-terminated: line delimiter is NUL, not newline
--help: display this help and exit
--version: output version information and exit

NUM may have a multiplier suffix: b 512, kB 1000, K 1024, MB 1000*1000, M 1024*1024, GB 1000*1000*1000, G 1024*1024*1024, and so on for T, P, E, Z, Y, R, Q. Binary prefixes can be used, too: KiB=K, MiB=M, and so on.

AUTHOR

Written by David MacKenzie and Jim Meyering.

REPORTING BUGS

GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>

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Time: 11:48:42 GMT, September 14, 2026