Help with 'tail' command!

Beppe83 · 04-07-2004, 04:57 AM

Hi all.

I'm writing a simple bash script, and I need help with the 'tail' command; ok first of all I execute the 'ls' command and I pipe it to the 'tail' one with this option '-n N' where N is the number of lines I want to display.

Now the point is the I need the FIRST N lines and not the LAST ones; I read in the 'man' of tail that if I use '+' before the number of lines I want to see. It doesn't work. Here it is:

ls -l | tail -n +5

Ok, this is not running. Anyone can help?

Thanx!

Gnuru · 04-07-2004, 06:00 AM

Try this:

Code:

ls -l | tac | tail -n 5

hw-tph · 04-07-2004, 06:05 AM

Or just use head instead of tail (sounds like the beginning of a bad joke but it isn't

)

Håkan

Beppe83 · 04-07-2004, 08:11 AM

Thank you!