show the first lines of one or many text files with sfk head for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Raspberry Pi.

- download the free Swiss File Knife Base from Sourceforge.
- open the Windows CMD command line, Mac OS X Terminal or Linux shell.
- OS X : type mv sfk-mac-i686.exe sfk and chmod +x sfk then ./sfk
- Linux: type mv sfk-linux.exe sfk    and chmod +x sfk then ./sfk
  OS X and Linux syntax may differ, check the help within the tool.

sfk head [-lines=n] [-f[ollow] [filename]
sfk ... +[t]head [-lines=n]

1. print first lines of a file, optionally following changes.
   to use file content processing, provide a single filename.

2. print first text lines procuded by a previous command.
   to process chain text thead is recommended.

options
   -lines=n     print first n lines (default is 10).
   -follow      or -f waits for file changes, rereading from start.
                to post-process head output, e.g. with +filter, always
                add +loop at the end of the command sequence.
                head checks both file size and time for changes.
   -altsize     use a different method to determine the file size
                (stat instead of seek). may help if the default method
                fails to read the file, or to improve performance.

see also
   sfk filter -head=n  read and search first n lines of text files.
   sfk view     GUI tool to view all text files of a folder, then jump
                through file heads by ctrl+pageDown.

web reference
   http://stahlworks.com/sfk-head

examples
   sfk head readme.txt
      print first 10 lines of readme.txt
   type myfile.txt | sfk filter +thead -lines=50
      filter first 50 lines from stdin, via sfk filter.
   sfk head -follow status.txt +filt -high Red error +loop
      show changes in status.txt, highlight "error" in red.
 

read more about all sfk functions here.