Bash Cookbook

How to do it...

Open a terminal and run the following commands:

$ cat loremipsum.txt$ head loremipsum.txt$ head -n 1 loremipsum.txt$ tail loremipsum.txt$ tail -n 1 loremipsum.txt

Interestingly enough, the tail command has a feature that is different than the head command: it can monitor the tail end of a file forever until the command is exited or killed when using the -f or -F flags. Run the following command:

$ tail -F /var/log/kern.log

Keeping the tail command running, try disconnecting your wireless or Ethernet port. What do you see?

Press Ctrl + C to quit tail and run the following command:

$ more loremipsum.txt

Pressing the spacebar or Enter on your keyboard will progress through the file until the end. Pressing q will immediately exit ...