See file content

There are various way to see the file content in linux.

1. cat

Symbol: cat fileName

will show the content of file in shell.


2. head

head will show the content from the top of the file. In head you can specify number of line you want to see.

Symbol: head -20 fileName

will show the first 20 lines from the file.


3. tail

tail will show the content from the bottom of the file. like head you can specify the number of line you want to see

Symbol: tail -100 fileName

will show last 100 line from the file.

*** If you want to see content from a log file which is continuously written by system/other application use tail as follows.

tail -20f fileName.

This will continously show the last written 20 line from the file.