tail(1)
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tail Command
deliver the last part of a file
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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 line of the input file has
been copied. Instead, it enters an endless loop, wherein it
sleeps for a second and then tries to read and copy further
records from the input file. Thus, you can use tail to monitor
the growth of a file that is being written by some other process.
For example, the command:
tail -f fred
prints the last ten lines of the file fred, followed by any lines
that are appended to fred between the time tail is initiated and
killed. As another example, the command:
tail -15cf fred
will print the last 15 characters of the file fred, followed by
any lines that are appended to fred between the time tail is
initiated and killed.
SEE ALSO
dd(1).
BUGS
DG/UX 4.00 Page 1
Licensed material--property of copyright holder(s)
tail(1)
Tails relative to the end of the file are saved in a buffer, and
thus are limited in length. Various kinds of anomalous behavior
may happen with character-special files.
WARNING
The tail command will only tail the last 4096 bytes of a file,
regardless of its length.
DG/UX 4.00 Page 2
Licensed material--property of copyright holder(s)