Examples of Linux ‘head’ Command to Preview a File

This article will show you how to use the head command in Linux. head is used to print out the beginning of a file. For example, this is useful when you have a giant text file and you want to preview the contents without attempting to open the entire file. Here are some common examples on the usage:

Using ‘head’ in Ubuntu, CentOS, Fedora, and RHEL

1. Displaying the First N Characters from a File

You can use the -c (bytes) option with head to display the first N characters from a file:

head -c 50 filename

In this example, head will output the first 50 characters from the file named “filename”.

2. Combining head with tail to Display Specific Lines

You can combine head and tail commands to display specific lines from a file. For example, to display lines 10 to 20 of a file:

head -20 filename | tail -11

Here, head -20 filename will first get the first 20 lines of the file, and tail -11 will then get the last 11 lines from that output (which are lines 10 to 20).

3. Using head with Pipes and Grep

You can use head in combination with other commands like grep using pipes. For instance, to find a specific word in a file and display the first ten instances:

grep 'word' filename | head

In this case, grep will find lines containing ‘word’ in the file, and head will display the first ten of those lines.

4. Displaying Multiple Files

head can also output the beginning lines of multiple files. When used with multiple files, head will also display the file names:

head file1 file2 file3

This command will display the first ten lines of file1, file2, and file3, preceded by the respective file name.

5. Changing the Amount of Output

The default behavior of head is to display the first ten lines of a file. However, you can specify a different number of lines using -n option:

head -n 15 filename

In this case, head will output the first 15 lines of “filename”.

Examples Using Both ‘head’ and ‘grep’ Together

In Linux/Unix grep, short for “global regular expression print”, is a command used in searching and matching text files contained in the regular expressions. We’ll show you some more advanced use-cases when using both head and grep together.

Sure, the head and grep commands are powerful tools when used together. Here are some advanced examples:

1. Find the First File containing a Specific Word in a Directory

grep -rl "search_word" /path/to/directory | head -n 1

This command will return the first file that contains “search_word” within the specified directory.

2. Extract First N Lines containing a Specific Word from a File

grep "search_word" filename | head -n 10

This will find the first ten lines containing “search_word” from the file.

3. Display the First File that Contains a Certain Pattern in a Large Set of Files

grep -rl "pattern" * | head -n 1

This command searches for the specified “pattern” across all files in the current directory and displays the first file that contains the pattern.

4. Find the First N Occurrences of a Pattern across Multiple Files

grep -r "pattern" /path/to/directory | head -n 10

This will output the first ten lines containing the “pattern” from all files in the specified directory.

5. Display a Specific Number of Log Entries containing a Certain String

grep "Error 404" /var/log/apache2/access.log | head -n 20

This command will display the first 20 log entries containing “Error 404” from the Apache access log file.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)