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Specialized

§ 15.A: Viewing Files with head

You may remember the tail command which we used to view the last few lines of files. The head command is similar, except that it is used to view the first few lines of a file. Go to the prog directory and try:
> cd development/prog/

> head area.f

Your response should look something like: 

       PROGRAM area  
c area of circle, r input from terminal  
       DOUBLE PRECISION pi, r, A   
c    Best value of pi for IEEE floating point   
       pi = 3.14159265358979323846  
c       read r from standard input (terminal)  

       PROGRAM area  
c area of circle, r input from terminal  
       DOUBLE PRECISION pi, r, A
Like tail you can specify the number of lines you wish to see using the option - followed by the number of lines. Try the command:
> head -5 area.f

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Comments and questions to Dr. Elias N. Houstis at enh@cs.purdue.edu.