Linux show text file

Terminal Basics #5: View the File Contents in Linux

In this chapter of the Terminal Basics series, you’ll learn about viewing the contents of files in the Linux command line.

You learned to create new files in the previous chapter of the Terminal Basics series. In this chapter, you’ll learn to read the files. I’ll be discussing the most common Linux commands to display the contents of a text file. Before you do that, let’s create our ‘playground’ with sample files. Let’s create a directory first and switch to it.

mkdir display_files && cd display_files

And then, create a new file named columbo.txt with the following text (use the cat command with >> as discussed in the previous chapter):

Prescription: Murder Ransom for a Dead Man Murder by the Book Death Lends a Hand Dead Weight Suitable for Framing Lady in Waiting Short Fuse Blueprint for Murder

You don’t have to type it all by yourself. You can copy-paste in the terminal using Ctrl+Shift+V. Most terminals support this shortcut. With things set, let’s see various ways of viewing files in the Linux terminal.

Use cat command to display file content

The cat command is the most popular method to view files in Linux. It is dead simple to use. Just give it the file name and it displays the file content on the screen. Things cannot go simpler than this.

This is the output it shows:

Optional challenge: Use the cat or echo command with >> redirection to add a new line with «Etude in Black» text to the columbo.txt file. Refer to the previous chapter if you need help.

Using the less command to read large text files

The cat command is so simple. In fact, it is too simple. And simple doesn’t work in complicated scenarios. Try using the cat command to view the content of the services file.

This services is a huge file with hundreds of lines. When you use cat, it floods the entire screen with the entire text. This is not ideal. Can you read the first line of the file? Yes, you can but you have to scroll all the way up. If the file has thousands of lines, you won’t even be able to scroll back to the first few lines. This is where the less command comes into the picture. It lets you read the contents of a file in a page-by-page manner. You exit the viewing mode and your terminal screen is clean as ever. Use the less command to read the services file:

Now you are in a different viewing mode. You can use the arrow keys to move line by line. You can also use the Page Up and Page Down keys to move up and down by pages. You can even search for certain text using /search_term. When you are done reading the file, press Q key to exit the less view and go back to the normal terminal viewing. This table will help you use less:

Keys	Action
Up arrow	Move one line up
Down arrow	Move one line down
Space or PgDn	Move one page down
b or PgUp	Move one page up
g	Move to the beginning of the file
G	Move to the end of the file
ng	Move to the nth line
/pattern	Search for pattern and use n to move to next match
q	Exit less

From viewing files in real time to bookmarking text, less can do a lot more. Read this to learn more about it.

Head and tail to show part of text files

If you only want to see certain parts of the text file in cat-styled display, use the head and tail commands. By default, the head command displays the first 10 lines of a file.

Practice examples

#create or clear the content of the file echo -n > sample #put content to the file for i in do echo "This is the line $i" >> sample done

Create a new file named script.sh and copy-paste the above script content into it. Now run the script like this to generate your sample file:

Now, you have got a file named sample that contains lines like «This is the line number N» for every 70 lines.

Let’s take it to the next level. You can combine them both to show specific lines of a file. For example, to show lines from 35 to 40, use it like this:

head -n 40 filename | tail -n +35

Here:

• head -n 40 filename will display the first 40 lines of the file.
• tail -n +35 will display the lines from the 35th line to the end of the output from the head command. Yeah! Mind the + sign that changes the normal behavior of the tail command.

You can also combine them to show only a particular line. Let’s say you want to display the 55th line; combine head and tail like this.

head -n 55 filename | tail -n 1

• head -n 55 filename will display the first 55 lines of the file.
• tail -n 1 will display the last line of the output from the head command, which will be the 55th line of the file.

Test your knowledge

Time for you to exercise your grey cells and practice what you learned in this chapter.

• Use the same sample file and display lines from 63 and 68.
• Now display the lines from 67 to 70.
• How about displaying the first line only?
• What do you see in the /etc/passwd file? Display its content.

That’s it for this chapter. Next, you’ll learn about removing files and folders in the command line. Stay tuned.

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Display Contents Of A Text File On Command Line Linux

In Linux, we constantly work with text files such as configuration files, source codes, web pages, and many others. Hence, it is essential to have a quick view of the contents of a text file in the command line before editing the file.

This quick guide aims to show you various approaches you can use to list the contents of a text file in the terminal.

What is a text file?

The chances are high that you are familiar with a text file. However, to recap, a text file is a digital file that contains raw text; this means the file should not contain any formatting such as bold, italics, underline, or such. In addition, text files do not have any form of media such as pictures, videos, or audio.

By default, text files use the.txt extension. However, they take other forms such as source code in programming languages such as C (.c), C++ (.cpp, .h), Python (.py), and many more. Moreover, they do not necessarily have to end with an extension. For example, a configuration file such as /etc/vim/vimrc does not have any extension.

NOTE: We also call text files ASCII text files.

To view the file type in Linux, use the file command:

# 1 – Cat

Cat is a popular and straightforward command for listing the contents of a file to the terminal.

To use the cat command, pass the name of the file to the cat command as:

You can pass the absolute path to the file, as shown in the example above.

Cat is simple yet powerful when used with other options. To learn how to use the cat command, read -> how to use the cat command.

When using the cat command to dump the contents of a large text file to the terminal, it will mess up your terminal, making it very hard to navigate.

To resolve such as issue, we use the less command.

# 2 – Less

If you have ever read a manual page for any Linux command, then you have interacted with less.

Less allows you to view the contents of a file one page at a time. Using the space key, you can scroll through the text file. Two colons at the bottom of the screen indicate each page of the text file.

For example, a large file such as /var/log/kern.log would not work out great with a cat. To use less, we do:

Once you reach the end of the file, you can scroll up and down using the UP and DOWN arrow keys.

To quit the less command, press Q. Less exits its session without messing up the terminal.

Combining less with a few options gives you control and functionality; for more, please read ->How to use less command with examples.

# 3 – More

Another command you can use to show the contents of a text file is the more command. More is very similar to the less command; however, it dumps the file’s contents to the terminal and exits at the end of the file.

Here is an example: (Same command as the other one?)

# 4 –Head and Tail

Yes, there are such commands. The head and tail commands are very similar and used to show the first and last ten lines of a file, respectively.

However, you can modify how many first and last lines the head and tail command prints using the -n option.
For example, to show the first 15 lines of the kern.log file:

Similarly, to show the last 15 lines of the kern.log file:

# 5 – Misc

If—for some reason—you do not have either of the commands discussed above, you can use a text editor such as nano to show the contexts of a file. However, this is more like editing the file than viewing the contents.

Here is the command for that:

Conclusion

Now you know how to display the contents of a file on the Linux Command line. Thank you for reading.

About the author

John Otieno

My name is John and am a fellow geek like you. I am passionate about all things computers from Hardware, Operating systems to Programming. My dream is to share my knowledge with the world and help out fellow geeks. Follow my content by subscribing to LinuxHint mailing list

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5 Commands to View the Content of a File in Linux Command Line

Here are five commands that let you view the content of a file in Linux terminal.

If you are new to Linux and you are confined to a terminal, you might wonder how to view a file in the command line.

Reading a file in Linux terminal is not the same as opening file in Notepad. Since you are in the command line mode, you should use commands to read file in Linux.

Don’t worry. It’s not at all complicated to display a file in Linux. It’s easy as well essential that you learn how to read files in the line.

Here are five commands that let you view the content of a file in Linux terminal.

5 commands to view files in Linux

Before you how to view a file in Unix like systems, let me clarify that when I am referring to text files here. There are different tools and commands if you want to read binary files.

Cat becomes a powerful command when used with its options. I recommend reading this detailed tutorial on using cat command.

The problem with cat command is that it displays the text on the screen. Imagine if you use cat command with a file that has 2000 lines. Your entire screen will be flooded with the 200 lines and that’s not the ideal situation.

So, what do you do in such a case? Use less command in Linux (explained later).

2. nl

The nl command is almost like the cat command. The only difference is that it prepends line numbers while displaying the text in the terminal.

There are a few options with nl command that allows you to control the numbering. You can check its man page for more details.

3. Less

Less command views the file one page at a time. The best thing is that you exit less (by pressing q), there are no lines displayed on the screen. Your terminal remains clean and pristine.

I strongly recommend learning a few options of the Less command so that you can use it more effectively.

There is also more command which was used in olden days but less command has more friendly features. This is why you might come across the humorous term ‘less is more’.

4. Head

Head command is another way of viewing text file but with a slight difference. The head command displays the first 10 lines of a text file by default.

You can change this behavior by using options with head command but the fundamental principle remains the same: head command starts operating from the head (beginning) of the file.

5. Tail

Tail command in Linux is similar and yet opposite to the head command. While head command displays file from the beginning, the tail command displays file from the end.

By default, tail command displays the last 10 lines of a file.

Head and Tail commands can be combined to display selected lines from a file. You can also use tail command to see the changes made to a file in real time.

Bonus: Strings command

Okay! I promised to show only the commands for viewing text files. And this one deals with both text and binary files.

The Strings command displays the readable text from a binary file.

No, it doesn’t convert binary files into text files. If the binary file consists of actual readable text, the strings command displays those text on your screen. You can use the file command to find the type of a file in Linux.

Conclusion

Some Linux users use Vim to view the text file. Of course, you can easily move from the beginning to the end of the lines and edit the file but it’s overkill for just reading a file. My favorite command to open a file in Linux is the less command. It leaves the screen clear and has several options that makes viewing text file a lot easier.

Since you now know ways to view files, maybe you would be interested in knowing how to edit text files in Linux. Cut and Paste are two such commands that you can use for editing text in Linux terminal. You may also read about creating files in Linux command line.

Which command do you prefer?

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