How does “(head; tail) < file” work?

Question

(via https://stackoverflow.com/a/8624829/23582)

How does (head; tail) < file work? Note that cat file | (head;tail) doesn\'t.

Al

Answer 1

head command display first 10(default) lines of file. And tail command display last 10(default) lines of file. Suppose if the file has only 3 lines also no problem those command will display those lines. But if you have more than 10 lines, then both command will display default 10 lines only. The default number of lines will be changed by using -n, n, +n options. (refer man page)