TAIL(C) XENIX System V TAIL(C)
Name
tail - Delivers the last part of a file.
Syntax
tail [ _[number][lbc] [ -f ] ] [ file ]
Description
tail copies the named file to the standard output beginning
at a designated place. If no file is named, the standard
input is used.
Copying begins at distance +number from the beginning, or
-number from the end of the input (if number is null, the
value 10 is assumed). Number is counted in units of lines,
blocks, or characters, according to the appended option l,
b, or c. When no units are specified, counting is by lines.
With the -f (``follow'') option, if the input file is not a
pipe, the program will not terminate after the last line of
the input file has been copied, but will enter an endless
loop, wherein it sleeps for a second and then attempts to
read and copy further records from the input file. Thus it
may be used to monitor the growth of a file that is being
written by some other process. For example, the command:
tail-f file
will print the last ten lines of file, followed by any lines
that are appended to file between the time tail is initiated
and killed.
See Also
dd(C)
Notes
Tails relative to the end of the file are kept in a buffer,
and thus are limited in length. Unpredictable results can
occur if character special files are ``tailed''.
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