NAME¶

tail - Print the last 10 lines of each FILE to standard output. With more than one FILE, precede each with a header giving the file name. With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input. Mandatory arguments to long flags are mandatory for short flags too.

SYNOPSIS¶

tail [-c|--bytes] [-f|--follow] [-n|--lines] [--pid] [-q|--quiet] [-s|--sleep-interval] [--max-unchanged-stats] [-v|--verbose] [-z|--zero-terminated] [--use-polling] [--retry] [-F ] [--debug] [-h|--help] [-V|--version] [files]

DESCRIPTION¶

Print the last 10 lines of each FILE to standard output. With more than one FILE, precede each with a header giving the file name. With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input. Mandatory arguments to long flags are mandatory for short flags too.

OPTIONS¶

-c, --bytes

Number of bytes to print

-f, --follow

Print the file as it grows

[possible values: descriptor, name]

-n, --lines

Number of lines to print

--pid <PID>

With -f, terminate after process ID, PID dies

-q, --quiet

Never output headers giving file names

-s, --sleep-interval <N>

Number of seconds to sleep between polling the file when running with -f

--max-unchanged-stats <N>

Reopen a FILE which has not changed size after N (default 5) iterations to see if it has been unlinked or renamed (this is the usual case of rotated log files); This option is meaningful only when polling (i.e., with --use-polling) and when --follow=name

-v, --verbose

Always output headers giving file names

-z, --zero-terminated

Line delimiter is NUL, not newline

--use-polling

Disable 'inotify' support and use polling instead

--retry

Keep trying to open a file if it is inaccessible

-F

Same as --follow=name --retry

--debug

tail-help-debug

-h, --help

Print help

-V, --version

Print version

[files]

VERSION¶

v(uutils coreutils) 0.7.0

EXAMPLES¶

Show last 10 lines in a file:

tail path/to/file

Show last 10 lines of multiple files:

tail path/to/file1 path/to/file2 ...

Show last 5 lines in file:

tail [-5|--lines 5] path/to/file

Print a file from a specific line number:

tail [-n|--lines] +count path/to/file

Print a specific count of bytes from the end of a given file:

tail [-c|--bytes] count path/to/file

Print the last lines of a given file and keep reading it until `<Ctrl c>`:

tail [-f|--follow] path/to/file

Keep reading file until `<Ctrl c>`, even if the file is inaccessible:

tail [-F|--retry --follow] path/to/file

Show last `count` lines in a file and refresh every `seconds` seconds:

tail [-n|--lines] count [-s|--sleep-interval] seconds [-f|--follow] path/to/file

The examples are provided by the tldr-pages project <https://tldr.sh> under the CC BY 4.0 License. Please note that, as uutils is a work in progress, some examples might fail.