dear lazyweb

[rone]

I want to run a command that will give me the contents of a file, except for the last two lines.  I know that tail -2 filename will give me the last two lines of a file, and head -2 filename will give me the first two lines of a file.  Now, tail +2 filename will give me contents of a file, starting with line 2.  It's not a symmetrical option, but i can at least work with that.  However, the head command lacks this elegant mode; otherwise, i would infer that head +3 filename would give me what i want.  Is there a simple command that can do what i want?  I figure i can implement this in some fugly perl script, but that is not the damn point.

Comments

[mundivagant.livejournal.com]

head --lines=-N

(edit) in this case, head --lines=-2

(edit 2) output of head --version:
head (GNU coreutils) 6.10
Copyright (C) 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Written by David MacKenzie and Jim Meyering.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I declare you winner.

[mundivagant.livejournal.com]

WE ARE ALL WINNERS!!11111

YAAAAAAAAAAY

GNU

[he-who-wanders.livejournal.com]

Anytime you can run code written by DJM I say uoi are the winner..