maybe the following untested solutions. Beware, numbers 2 and 3 are a bit on the silly side. :
  1. perl -pe 'exit if ($. > 5);'
  2. #!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my $cnt = 0;
while (my $line = <>) {
    chomp($line);
    $cnt++;
    if ($cnt > 5) {
        next;
    } else {
        print "$line\n";
    }
}

    [download]
  3. use strict;
open(PRINT,"| lp") || die "Could not start lp : $!\n";
while (my $line = <>) {
    print PRINT $line;
    last if ($. > 5);
}
close(PRINT);

    [download]
i had a memory leak once, and it ruined my favorite shirt.

In reply to Re: how to print first 5 lines of a file by MZSanford
in thread how to print first 5 lines of a file by Anonymous Monk

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