Check first N lines of bash file for string

Question

I am trying to write a bash script that can go through and check only the first N lines of a file to match a specific string. I am able to write a simple command that will check the entire file, but information that is contained in lines greater than N may not be accurate.

Here is my current implementation

find . -exec egrep -H -m 1 -l "\<$month/$day/$year\>" {} \;

I was thinking of using the head function to trim the files first but this does not seem to be working. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance

Answer 1

This will show you files matching the pattern in the first N lines

find . -type f | xargs egrep -H -m 1 -n "\<$month/$day/$year\>" | awk -F : '$2 <= N { print $1; }'

egrep searches for the first occurrence in a file and adds a line number. awk then searches for all lines with a line number less or equal to N (insert number here) and prints the filename.