What's the opposite of head? I want all but the first N lines of a file

command-line scripting tail unix-head
Nicholas M T Elliott picture Nicholas M T Elliott · Aug 18, 2010 · Viewed 75k times · Source

Given a text file of unknown length, how can I read, for example all but the first 2 lines of the file? I know tail will give me the last N lines, but I don't know what N is ahead of time.

So for a file

AAAA
BBBB
CCCC
DDDD
EEEE

I want 

CCCC
DDDD
EEEE

And for a file

AAAA
BBBB
CCCC

I'd get just

CCCC

Answer

Joe Enos picture Joe Enos · Aug 18, 2010

tail --help gives the following:

  -n, --lines=K            output the last K lines, instead of the last 10;
                           or use -n +K to output lines starting with the Kth

So to filter out the first 2 lines, -n +3 should give you the output you are looking for (start from 3rd).

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