Read ONLY x lines from a txt file with a windows batch file

Question

How can I read only X lines from a a.txt file?

The file contains all the names of a directory, I would like to read only x lines. X can be a number that can varies from

Answer 1

you can use vbscript. Here's an example

Set objFS = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set objArgs = WScript.Arguments
strNum = objArgs(0)
strFile=objArgs(1)
Set objFile = objFS.OpenTextFile(strFile)
Do Until objFile.AtEndOfLine
    If CInt(objFile.Line) > CInt(strNum) Then
      Exit Do  
    End If 
    strLine=objFile.ReadLine
    WScript.Echo strLine    
Loop

save as myscript.vbs and

c:\test> cscript //nologo myscript.vbs 99 file

Or if have the luxury to install tools, you can download sed or gawk for windows . Then on the command line

sed.exe "99q" file
gawk.exe "NR>2{exit}1" file