tail

Name

tail -- output the last part of files

Description

tail is as specified in the SUS but with differences as listed below.

Differences

--retry

tries to open a file even if it is inaccessible when tail starts or if it becomes inaccessible later; useful only with -f.

--bytes=N

outputs the last N bytes.

--follow

is equivalent to -f.

--lines=N

is equivalent to -n.

--max-unchanged-stats=N

performs open/fstat of a file specified by name (if there have been N consecutive iterations for which the size has remained the same) to determine if that file name is still associated with the same device/inode-number pair as before.

--max-consecutive-size-changes=N

if a file has been specified by name, controls how long tail follows the descriptor of a file that continues growing at a rapid pace even after it is deleted or renamed. After detecting N consecutive size changes for a file, open/fstat the file to determine if that file name is still associated with the same device/inode-number pair as before.

--pid=PID

terminates after process ID PID dies (only may be specified if -f is).

-q, --quiet, --silent

does not outputs headers giving file names.

-s, --sleep-interval=S

sleeps S seconds between iterations (only may be specified if -f is).

-v, --verbose

outputs headers giving file names.

+NUMBER, -NUMBER

supports b, k and m as suffixes (referring to multipliers 512, 1024 and 1048576, respectively), as opposed to the c or l suffixes as stated in the SUS.