tail.1 (2010 09)

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tail(1) tail(1)

NAME

tail - deliver the last part of a ﬁle

SYNOPSIS

tail [-f][-b number ][ﬁle ]

tail [-f][-c number ][ﬁle ]

tail [-f][-n number ][ﬁle ]

Obsolescent:

tail [±[ number ]][

lbc][-f][ﬁle ]

DESCRIPTION

tail copies the named ﬁle to the standard output beginning at a designated place. If no ﬁle is named,

standard input is used.

Command Forms

tail can be used in three forms as indicated above:

tail -b number... Copy ﬁle starting at number blocks from end or beginning of ﬁle.

tail -c number... Copy ﬁle starting at number bytes from end or beginning of ﬁle.

tail -n number...

tail number... Copy ﬁle starting at number lines from end or beginning of ﬁle.

tail with no options speciﬁed is equivalent to tail -n 10 ... .

Options and Command-Line Arguments

tail recognizes the following options and command-line arguments:

-f Follow option. If the input ﬁle is a regular ﬁle or if ﬁle speciﬁes a

FIFO, do not ter-

minate after the last line of the input ﬁle has been copied, but read and copy

further bytes from the input ﬁle when they become available (

tail enters an end-

less loop wherein it sleeps for one second then attempts to read and copy further

records from the input ﬁle). This is useful when monitoring text being written to a

ﬁle by another process. If no ﬁle argument is speciﬁed and the input is a pipe

(FIFO), the -f option is ignored.

number Decimal integer indicating quantity of output to be copied, measured in units

speciﬁed by accompanying option. If number is preceded by a

+ character, copy

operation starts number units from beginning of ﬁle. If number is preceded by a -

character or the option name, copy operation starts number units from end of ﬁle.

If number is not preceded by a b, c,or n option, -n is assumed. If both the option

and number are not speciﬁed, -n 10 is assumed.

-b number Copy ﬁle beginning number 512-byte blocks from end or beginning of ﬁle. If

number is not speciﬁed, -b 10 is assumed. See number description above.

-c number Copy ﬁle beginning number bytes from end or beginning of ﬁle. If number is not

speciﬁed, -c 10 is assumed. See number description above.

-n number Copy ﬁle beginning number lines from end or beginning of ﬁle. If number is not

speciﬁed, -n 10 is assumed. See number description above.

file Name of ﬁle to be copied. If not speciﬁed, the standard input is used.

If the

-c option is speciﬁed, the input ﬁle can contain arbitrary data. Otherwise, the input ﬁle should be

a text ﬁle.

Obsolescent Form

In the obsolescent form, option letters can be concatenated after the number argument to select blocks,

bytes, or lines. If this syntax is used,

±number must be the ﬁrst argument given. If number is not

speciﬁed, −10 is assumed. This version is provided for backward compatibility only. The forms discussed

previously are recommended for portability.

HP-UX 11i Version 3: September 2010 − 1 − Hewlett-Packard Company 1

Summary of content (2 pages)

PAGE 1
tail(1) tail(1) NAME tail - deliver the last part of a file SYNOPSIS tail [-f] [-b number ] [ file ] tail [-f] [-c number ] [ file ] tail [-f] [-n number ] [ file ] Obsolescent: tail [ ±[ number ] ] [lbc] [-f] [ file ] DESCRIPTION tail copies the named file to the standard output beginning at a designated place. If no file is named, standard input is used. Command Forms tail can be used in three forms as indicated above: tail -b number...
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tail(1) tail(1) EXTERNAL INFLUENCES Environment Variables LC_CTYPE determines the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as characters (e.g., single- versus multibyte characters in arguments and input files). LC_MESSAGES determines the language in which messages are displayed. If LC_CTYPE or LC_MESSAGES is not specified in the environment or is set to the empty string, the value of LANG is used as a default for each unspecified or empty variable.