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+tail(P) tail(P)
+
+
+
+
+
+NAME
+ tail - copy the last part of a file
+
+SYNOPSIS
+ tail [-f][ -c number| -n number][file]
+
+DESCRIPTION
+ The tail utility shall copy its input file to the stan-
+ dard output beginning at a designated place.
+
+ Copying shall begin at the point in the file indicated
+ by the -c number or -n number options. The option-argu-
+ ment number shall be counted in units of lines or bytes,
+ according to the options -n and -c. Both line and byte
+ counts start from 1.
+
+ Tails relative to the end of the file may be saved in an
+ internal buffer, and thus may be limited in length. Such
+ a buffer, if any, shall be no smaller than {LINE_MAX}*10
+ bytes.
+
+OPTIONS
+ The tail utility shall conform to the Base Definitions
+ volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 12.2, Utility
+ Syntax Guidelines.
+
+ The following options shall be supported:
+
+ -c number
+ The application shall ensure that the number
+ option-argument is a decimal integer whose sign
+ affects the location in the file, measured in
+ bytes, to begin the copying:
+ Sign Copying Starts
+ + Relative to the beginning of the file.
+ - Relative to the end of the file.
+ none Relative to the end of the file.
+
+ The origin for counting shall be 1; that is, -c +1 rep-
+ resents the first byte of the file, -c -1 the last.
+
+ -f If the input file is a regular file or if the
+ file operand specifies a FIFO, do not terminate
+ 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. If no file
+ operand is specified and standard input is a
+ pipe, the -f option shall be ignored. If the
+ input file is not a FIFO, pipe, or regular file,
+ it is unspecified whether or not the -f option
+ shall be ignored.
+
+ -n number
+ This option shall be equivalent to -c number,
+ except the starting location in the file shall be
+ measured in lines instead of bytes. The origin
+ for counting shall be 1; that is, -n +1 repre-
+ sents the first line of the file, -n -1 the last.
+
+
+ If neither -c nor -n is specified, -n 10 shall be
+ assumed.
+
+OPERANDS
+ The following operand shall be supported:
+
+ file A pathname of an input file. If no file operands
+ are specified, the standard input shall be used.
+
+
+STDIN
+ The standard input shall be used only if no file oper-
+ ands are specified. See the INPUT FILES section.
+
+INPUT FILES
+ If the -c option is specified, the input file can con-
+ tain arbitrary data; otherwise, the input file shall be
+ a text file.
+
+ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
+ The following environment variables shall affect the
+ execution of tail:
+
+ LANG Provide a default value for the internationaliza-
+ tion variables that are unset or null. (See the
+ Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001,
+ Section 8.2, Internationalization Variables for
+ the precedence of internationalization variables
+ used to determine the values of locale cate-
+ gories.)
+
+ LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the
+ values of all the other internationalization
+ variables.
+
+ LC_CTYPE
+ Determine the locale for the interpretation of
+ sequences of bytes of text data as characters
+ (for example, single-byte as opposed to multi-
+ byte characters in arguments and input files).
+
+ LC_MESSAGES
+ Determine the locale that should be used to
+ affect the format and contents of diagnostic mes-
+ sages written to standard error.
+
+ NLSPATH
+ Determine the location of message catalogs for
+ the processing of LC_MESSAGES .
+
+
+ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
+ Default.
+
+STDOUT
+ The designated portion of the input file shall be writ-
+ ten to standard output.
+
+STDERR
+ The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic
+ messages.
+
+OUTPUT FILES
+ None.
+
+EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
+ None.
+
+EXIT STATUS
+ The following exit values shall be returned:
+
+ 0 Successful completion.
+
+ >0 An error occurred.
+
+
+CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
+ Default.
+
+ The following sections are informative.
+
+APPLICATION USAGE
+ The -c option should be used with caution when the input
+ is a text file containing multi-byte characters; it may
+ produce output that does not start on a character bound-
+ ary.
+
+ Although the input file to tail can be any type, the
+ results might not be what would be expected on some
+ character special device files or on file types not
+ described by the System Interfaces volume of
+ IEEE Std 1003.1-2001. Since this volume of
+ IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 does not specify the block size
+ used when doing input, tail need not read all of the
+ data from devices that only perform block transfers.
+
+EXAMPLES
+ The -f option can be used to monitor the growth of a
+ file that is being written by some other process. For
+ example, the command:
+
+
+ tail -f fred
+
+ prints the last ten lines of the file fred, followed by
+ any lines that are appended to fred between the time
+ tail is initiated and killed. As another example, the
+ command:
+
+
+ tail -f -c 15 fred
+
+ prints the last 15 bytes of the file fred, followed by
+ any bytes that are appended to fred between the time
+ tail is initiated and killed.
+
+RATIONALE
+ This version of tail was created to allow conformance to
+ the Utility Syntax Guidelines. The historical -b option
+ was omitted because of the general non-portability of
+ block-sized units of text. The -c option historically
+ meant "characters", but this volume of
+ IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 indicates that it means "bytes".
+ This was selected to allow reasonable implementations
+ when multi-byte characters are possible; it was not
+ named -b to avoid confusion with the historical -b.
+
+ The origin of counting both lines and bytes is 1, match-
+ ing all widespread historical implementations.
+
+ The restriction on the internal buffer is a compromise
+ between the historical System V implementation of 4096
+ bytes and the BSD 32768 bytes.
+
+ The -f option has been implemented as a loop that sleeps
+ for 1 second and copies any bytes that are available.
+ This is sufficient, but if more efficient methods of
+ determining when new data are available are developed,
+ implementations are encouraged to use them.
+
+ Historical documentation indicates that tail ignores the
+ -f option if the input file is a pipe (pipe and FIFO on
+ systems that support FIFOs). On BSD-based systems, this
+ has been true; on System V-based systems, this was true
+ when input was taken from standard input, but it did not
+ ignore the -f flag if a FIFO was named as the file oper-
+ and. Since the -f option is not useful on pipes and all
+ historical implementations ignore -f if no file operand
+ is specified and standard input is a pipe, this volume
+ of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 requires this behavior. However,
+ since the -f option is useful on a FIFO, this volume of
+ IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 also requires that if standard
+ input is a FIFO or a FIFO is named, the -f option shall
+ not be ignored. Although historical behavior does not
+ ignore the -f option for other file types, this is
+ unspecified so that implementations are allowed to
+ ignore the -f option if it is known that the file cannot
+ be extended.
+
+ This was changed to the current form based on comments
+ noting that -c was almost never used without specifying
+ a number and that there was no need to specify -l if -n
+ number was given.
+
+FUTURE DIRECTIONS
+ None.
+
+SEE ALSO
+ head
+
+COPYRIGHT
+ Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in
+ electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition,
+ Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operat-
+ ing System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Speci-
+ fications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Insti-
+ tute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and
+ The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between
+ this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group
+ Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard
+ is the referee document. The original Standard can be
+ obtained online at http://www.open-
+ group.org/unix/online.html .
+
+
+
+POSIX 2003 tail(P)