Many ways you can do this. Here's one:

use strict;
use warnings;

my $file = shift;

print head($file);

sub head {
  my ($file,$count) = @_;
  $count ||= 10;
  open FILE, '<', $file or die "Cannot open ($file) for reading: $!";
  my @data;
  while (defined (my $line = <FILE>)) {
    push @data => $line;
    last if $. >= $count;
  }
  close FILE            or die "Cannot close ($file): $!";
  return @data;
}
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Cheers,
Ovid

New address of my CGI Course.
Silence is Evil (feel free to copy and distribute widely - note copyright text)