how to get first n lines of a file

[monkeyking]

i have some huge text files.
But while I test and develop, I want some small files.

So I want a way to "cat" the first n-lines to another file.
There must be some nice linux command tools for this.

Thanks in advance

[23meg]

Check out head.

[monkeyking]

YES!

thanks,
this is excatly what I needed :)

[23meg]

You're welcome. For future reference, the apropos command is helpful when you know what you want to do, are sure some command does it, but aren't sure which one. Try this:


apropos first lines

And don't forget the forum search.

[LotsOfPhil]

You could also do

sed -n 1,Np file.txt > newfile

That will put the first N lines in newfile.

[LotsOfPhil]

head is a lot faster than sed, so... I am just babbling, I guess.