------------------------------------------------------------------------ head display lines at the start of the file ------------------------------------------------------------------------ $ head -n lines -c bytes file1 file2 ... where n is the number of lines to dispaly or the number of bytes to display. The default value of n is 10 You can simplify to $ head -5 file1 #show first five lines $ head file1 #show, by default, first 10 lines For Unix aficionados $ sed '5q' file1 #quite clever $ sed 5q file1 #elegant & clever save two key strokes $ awk 'NR<6' file1 #not elegant