When should you use head and tail commands?

The head and tail commands are useful tools in Unix/Linux systems for viewing parts of text files. Here's when to use them:

  • head: Use the head command when you want to view the first few lines of a file. This is particularly useful for getting an overview of the content or structure of a file without loading the entire file into memory.
  • tail: Use the tail command when you want to see the last few lines of a file. This can be helpful for monitoring log files, where the latest entries are typically at the end of the file.

Both commands can include options to specify the number of lines to display and can also be used in conjunction with other commands for more advanced processing.

Here are some examples:

// Show the first 10 lines of a file head -n 10 example.txt // Show the last 10 lines of a file tail -n 10 example.txt // Continuously monitor a log file as it updates tail -f /var/log/syslog

head command tail command Unix Linux log files file manipulation

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