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31 .\" @(#)tail.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
32 .\" $FreeBSD: src/usr.bin/tail/tail.1,v 1.5.2.4 2002/07/15 07:46:27 keramida Exp $
39 .Nd display the last part of files
60 utility displays the contents of
62 or, by default, its standard input, to the standard output.
64 The display begins at a byte, line or 512-byte block location in the
66 Numbers having a leading plus
68 sign are relative to the beginning
69 of the input, for example,
71 starts the display at the second
73 Numbers having a leading minus
75 sign or no explicit sign are
76 relative to the end of the input, for example,
78 displays the last two lines of the input.
79 The default starting location is
81 or the last 10 lines of the input.
83 The options are as follows:
98 to not stop when end of file is reached, but rather to wait for additional
99 data to be appended to the input.
102 option is ignored if the standard input is a pipe, but not if it is a FIFO.
110 will also check to see if the file being followed has been renamed or rotated.
111 The file is closed and reopened when
113 detects that the filename being read from has a new inode number.
116 option is ignored if reading from standard input rather than a file.
122 Suppresses printing of headers when multiple files are being examined.
126 option causes the input to be displayed in reverse order, by line.
127 Additionally, this option changes the meaning of the
135 option is specified, these options specify the number of bytes, lines
136 or 512-byte blocks to display, instead of the bytes, lines or blocks
137 from the beginning or end of the input from which to begin the display.
140 option is to display all of the input.
142 Always prints a header for each file, even if only a single file is
146 If more than a single file is specified, or the
148 flag is used, each file is preceded by a header consisting of the string
152 is the name of the file.
155 flag disables the printing of the header in both cases.
166 utility is expected to be a superset of the
174 options are extensions to that standard.
176 The historic command line syntax of
178 is supported by this implementation.
179 The only difference between this implementation and historic versions
182 once the command line syntax translation has been done, is that the
191 displays the last 4 characters of the last line
192 of the input, while the historic tail (using the historic syntax
196 option and display the last 4 lines of the input.
200 command appeared in PWB