Head command does not position file pointer correctly for negative line count. Here is a demonstration of the problem. Step 1 - Create a file with 10 lines in it. $ yes "ABC" | head -c 40 >ip.txt $ Step 2 - If head behaves correctly, then 2 lines should get printed after "------------" but nothing gets printed! $ (head -n -2; echo "------------------------"; cat) Following snippet is copied from head.c (Function - elide_tail_lines_seekable ). Perhaps, there should be a lseek after fwrite there...: /* Output the initial portion of the buffer in which we found the desired newline byte. Don't bother testing for failure for such a small amount. Any failure will be detected upon close. */ fwrite (buffer, 1, n + 1, stdout); /*****************************************************************************************************************************/