Display the first few lines of a file

You use the head command to do this, with the -n argument with the number of lines from each file, like this:

head -n3 *

head -n3 *.txt

This also works for a single file:

head -n3 filename.txt

head

You use head with the -n option.

head -n 10 FILE

This will print the first ten lines of a file.

Another useful variation would be -n -NUMBER.

head -n -10 FILE

This will print all but the last ten lines of a file.

To solve your problem and get your desired output you can do the following.

basename * && head -n NUMBER *

basename *.FILETYPE && head -n NUMBER *.FILETYPE

This will get you following output:

FILENAME
LINE ONE
LINE TWO
LINE THREE

This will do what you want, hopefuly:

find . -print -exec head {} -n 3 \;

-print will show the filename and the rest (from -exec) will show the first 3 lines of each file

Change the number according to your needs...

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