TH TAIL 1
SH NAME
tail \- deliver the last part of a file
SH SYNOPSIS
B tail
[
BR +- \fInumber\fP[ lbc ][ rf ]
]
[
I file
]
PP
B tail
[
B -fr
]
[
B -n
I nlines
]
[
B -c
I ncharacters
]
[
I file
]
SH DESCRIPTION
I Tail
copies the named file to the standard output beginning
at a designated place.
If no file is named, the standard input is copied.
PP
Copying begins at position
BI + number
measured from the beginning, or
BI - number
from the end of the input.
I Number
is counted in lines, 1K blocks or characters,
according to the appended flag
LR l ,
LR b ,
or
LR c .
Default is
B -10l
(ten ell).
PP
The further flag
L r
causes tail to print lines from the end of the file in reverse order;
L f
(follow) causes
IR tail ,
after printing to the end, to keep watch and
print further data as it appears.
PP
The second syntax is that promulgated by POSIX, where
the
I numbers
rather than the options are signed.
SH EXAMPLES
TP
B tail file
Print the last 10 lines of a file.
TP
B tail +0f file
Print a file, and continue to watch
data accumulate as it grows.
TP
B sed 10q file
Print the first 10 lines of a file.
SH SOURCE
B /sys/src/cmd/tail.c
SH BUGS
Tails relative to the end of the file
are treasured up in a buffer, and thus
are limited in length.
br
According to custom, option
BI + number
counts lines from 1, and counts
blocks and characters from 0.
