Head

Category: Text

Status: Registered and callable in the CyberChef 11.3.0 compatibility inventory.

Input / output: string → string

What it does

Like the UNIX head utility. Gets the first n lines. You can select all but the last n lines by entering a negative value for n. The delimiter can be changed so that instead of lines, fields (i.e. commas) are selected instead.

Note

Status here means the operation name is implemented and callable. It does not by itself promise byte-for-byte parity for every upstream option. See Compatibility and current status for the verified scope and known boundaries.

Arguments and options

Arguments are positional. Keep their order when using bake() or Pipeline.then().

Index	Name	UI type	PyChef default	Accepted values / format
0	Delimiter	option	'Line feed'	'Line feed', 'CRLF', 'Space', 'Comma', 'Semi-colon', 'Colon', 'Nothing (separate chars)'
1	Number	number	10	A Python integer or floating-point value

Recipe template

Important

This is a call template built from the documented defaults. Replace placeholder values such as empty keys, paths, patterns, or lookup data before running it.

from pychef import bake

input_value = "example"
args = ['Line feed', 10]
result = bake(input_value, [{"op": 'Head', "args": args}])
print(result)

Pipeline example

from pychef import Pipeline

args = ['Line feed', 10]
transform = Pipeline().then('Head', *args)
result = transform("example")

Direct call

pychef.ops.run_operation runs any registered operation as a plain function, under the active ExecutionPolicy (safe defaults, no network):

from pychef.ops import run_operation

args = ['Line feed', 10]
result = run_operation('Head', "example", args=args)

Common operations also have typed helpers in Direct operations.

Low-level operation module

Warning

The module below is an internal implementation detail. It applies no execution policy, resource limits, or error sanitization; prefer bake(), Pipeline, or pychef.ops for application code.

The registered entry point lives in pychef.operations.by_operation.head. Direct calls receive the input value and a positional argument tuple:

from pychef.operations.by_operation.head import run

result = run("example", tuple(['Line feed', 10]))

pychef.operations.by_operation.head.run(value, args)

Run this operation using its shared internal implementation.

Parameters:

• value (str | bytes)

• args (Sequence[Any])

Return type:

str | bytes