coreutils: head invocation

1 
1 5.1 ‘head’: Output the first part of files
1 ==========================================
1 
1 ‘head’ prints the first part (10 lines by default) of each FILE; it
1 reads from standard input if no files are given or when given a FILE of
1 ‘-’.  Synopsis:
1 
1      head [OPTION]... [FILE]...
1 
1    If more than one FILE is specified, ‘head’ prints a one-line header
1 consisting of:
1 
1      ==> FILE NAME <==
1 
1 before the output for each FILE.
1 
11    The program accepts the following options.  Also see ⇒Common
 options.
1 
1 ‘-c [-]NUM’
1 ‘--bytes=[-]NUM’
1      Print the first NUM bytes, instead of initial lines.  However, if
1      NUM is prefixed with a ‘-’, print all but the last NUM bytes of
1      each file.  NUM may be, or may be an integer optionally followed
1      by, one of the following multiplicative suffixes:
1           ‘b’  =>            512 ("blocks")
1           ‘KB’ =>           1000 (KiloBytes)
1           ‘K’  =>           1024 (KibiBytes)
1           ‘MB’ =>      1000*1000 (MegaBytes)
1           ‘M’  =>      1024*1024 (MebiBytes)
1           ‘GB’ => 1000*1000*1000 (GigaBytes)
1           ‘G’  => 1024*1024*1024 (GibiBytes)
1      and so on for ‘T’, ‘P’, ‘E’, ‘Z’, and ‘Y’.
1 
1 ‘-n [-]NUM’
1 ‘--lines=[-]NUM’
1      Output the first NUM lines.  However, if NUM is prefixed with a
1      ‘-’, print all but the last NUM lines of each file.  Size
1      multiplier suffixes are the same as with the ‘-c’ option.
1 
1 ‘-q’
1 ‘--quiet’
1 ‘--silent’
1      Never print file name headers.
1 
1 ‘-v’
1 ‘--verbose’
1      Always print file name headers.
1 
1 ‘-z’
1 ‘--zero-terminated’
1      Delimit items with a zero byte rather than a newline (ASCII LF).
1      I.e., treat input as items separated by ASCII NUL and terminate
1      output items with ASCII NUL. This option can be useful in
1      conjunction with ‘perl -0’ or ‘find -print0’ and ‘xargs -0’ which
1      do the same in order to reliably handle arbitrary file names (even
1      those containing blanks or other special characters).
1 
1    For compatibility ‘head’ also supports an obsolete option syntax
1 ‘-[NUM][bkm][cqv]’, which is recognized only if it is specified first.
1 NUM is a decimal number optionally followed by a size letter (‘b’, ‘k’,
1 ‘m’) as in ‘-c’, or ‘l’ to mean count by lines, or other option letters
1 (‘cqv’).  Scripts intended for standard hosts should use ‘-c NUM’ or ‘-n
1 NUM’ instead.  If your script must also run on hosts that support only
1 the obsolete syntax, it is usually simpler to avoid ‘head’, e.g., by
1 using ‘sed 5q’ instead of ‘head -5’.
1 
1    An exit status of zero indicates success, and a nonzero value
1 indicates failure.
1