TAIL(1-SysV)        RISC/os Reference Manual         TAIL(1-SysV)



NAME
     tail - deliver the last part of a file

SYNOPSIS
     tail [ [ -number | +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, 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 fred

     will print 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(1M).

ERRORS
     Tails relative to the end of the file are stored 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 1048576 (1 Mg.)
     bytes of a file regardless of its line count.







                         Printed 1/15/91                   Page 1