Wednesday, March 8, 2023

How to Display Contents of a File in Linux (RHEL/Debian/CentOS/Ubuntu/Manjaro)

 Linux is a popular operating system used by many programmers, system administrators, and developers for its open-source nature and flexibility. As a user of Linux, you may find yourself needing to display the contents of a file in the command line interface.


This task can be accomplished using a variety of commands, each with its own specific purpose and usage. In this article, we will explore some of the most commonly used commands for displaying the contents of a file in Linux. We will also discuss how to interpret the output of these commands and provide some useful tips to help you make the most of your Linux experience.


This is some of many tools to display/read the contents of a file in Linux:

cat

cat - The "cat" command is short for concatenate and is used to display the contents of one or more files in the terminal.

Example: To display the contents of a file named "example.txt", you would type "cat example.txt" in the terminal.

head

head - The "head" command is used to display the first few lines of a file.

Example: To display the first 10 lines of a file named "example.txt", you would type "head example.txt" in the terminal.

tail

tail - The "tail" command is used to display the last few lines of a file.

Example: To display the last 10 lines of a file named "example.txt", you would type "tail example.txt" in the terminal.

flags

flags - Flags are used in conjunction with commands to modify their behavior. Flags can be used to change the output format or to perform additional actions.

Example: To display the contents of a file in reverse order using the "tail" command, you would use the "-r" flag like this: "tail -r example.txt".

more

more - The "more" command is used to display the contents of a file one screen at a time.

Example: To display the contents of a file named "example.txt" one screen at a time, you would type "more example.txt" in the terminal.

less

less - The "less" command is similar to the "more" command, but it allows for more advanced navigation and searching through the file.

Example: To display the contents of a file named "example.txt" using the "less" command, you would type "less example.txt" in the terminal.

tac

tac - The "tac" command is similar to the "cat" command, but it displays the contents of a file in reverse order.

Example: To display the contents of a file named "example.txt" in reverse order using the "tac" command, you would type "tac example.txt" in the terminal.

grep

grep - The "grep" command is used to search for specific patterns or strings of text within a file.

Example: To search for the string "hello" within a file named "example.txt" using the "grep" command, you would type "grep hello example.txt" in the terminal.


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