Cordel at 08:18, 22 June 2006

2006-06-22T08:18:55Z

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Usage: tail [OPTION]... [FILE]...

Print the last 10 lines of each FILE to standard output.

With more than one FILE, precede each with a header giving the file name.

With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.
--retry keep trying to open a file even if it is
inaccessible when tail starts or if it becomes
inaccessible later -- useful only with -f
-c, --bytes=N output the last N bytes
-f, --follow[={name|descriptor}]
output appended data as the file grows;
-f, --follow, and --follow=descriptor are
equivalent
-F same as --follow=name --retry
-n, --lines=N output the last N lines, instead of the last 10
--max-unchanged-stats=N
with --follow=name, reopen a FILE which has not
changed size after N (default 5) iterations
to see if it has been unlinked or renamed
(this is the usual case of rotated log files)
--pid=PID with -f, terminate after process ID, PID dies
-q, --quiet, --silent never output headers giving file names
-s, --sleep-interval=S with -f, sleep for approximately S seconds
(default 1.0) between iterations.
-v, --verbose always output headers giving file names
--help display this help and exit
--version output version information and exit

If the first character of N (the number of bytes or lines) is a `+',
print beginning with the Nth item from the start of each file, otherwise,
print the last N items in the file. N may have a multiplier suffix:
b 512, k 1024, m 1024*1024.

With --follow (-f), tail defaults to following the file descriptor, which
means that even if a tail'ed file is renamed, tail will continue to track
its end. This default behavior is not desirable when you really want to
track the actual name of the file, not the file descriptor (e.g., log
rotation). Use --follow=name in that case. That causes tail to track the
named file by reopening it periodically to see if it has been removed and
recreated by some other program.

Tail - Revision history

Cordel at 08:18, 22 June 2006