#top tail¶

tail [OPTION]... [FILE]...

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 options are mandatory for short options too.

--retry

-c, --bytes=N

-f, --follow[={name|descriptor}]

-F

-n, --lines=N

--max-unchanged-stats=N

--pid=PID

-q, --quiet, --silent

-s, --sleep-interval=S

-v, --verbose

--help display this help and exit

--version

If the first character of N (the number of bytes or lines) is a '+', print beginning with the Nth item from the start of each file, otherwise, print the last N items in the file. N may have a multiplier suffix: b 512, k 1024, m 1024*1024.

With --follow (-f), tail defaults to following the file descriptor, which means that even if a tail'ed file is renamed, tail will continue to track its end. This default behavior is not desirable when you really want to track the actual name of the file, not the file descriptor (e.g., log rotation). Use --follow=name in that case. That causes tail to track the named file by reopening it periodically to see if it has been removed and recreated by some other program.

'_POSIX2_VERSION' COMPATIBILITY ISSUES:
On older systems, the leading '-' can be replaced by '+' in the obsolete option syntax with the same meaning as in counts, and obsolete usage overrides normal usage when the two conflict. This obsolete behavior can be enabled or disabled with the '_POSIX2_VERSION' environment variable, but portable scripts should avoid commands whose behavior depends on this variable.
For example, use 'tail -- - main.c' or 'tail main.c' rather than the ambiguous 'tail - main.c', 'tail -c4' or 'tail -c 10 4' rather than the ambiguous 'tail -c 4', and 'tail ./+4' or 'tail -n +4' rather than the ambiguous 'tail +4'. You can work around those compatibility problems by setting '_POSIX2_VERSION=199209' in your environment.