TAIL(1) General Commands Manual TAIL(1)NAME
tail - print the last few lines of a file
SYNOPSIS
tail [-c n] [-f] [-n n] [file] ...
OPTIONS -c The count refers to characters
-f On FIFO or special file, keep reading after EOF
-n The count refers to lines
EXAMPLES
tail -n 6 # Print last 6 lines of stdin
tail -c 20 file # Print the last 20 characters of file
tail -n 1 file1 file2
# Print last line of two files
tail -n +8 file # Print the tail starting with line 8
DESCRIPTION
The last few lines of one or more files are printed. The default count is 10 lines. The default file is stdin. If the value of n for the
-c or -n flags starts with a + sign, counting starts at the beginning, rather than the end of the file.
SEE ALSO head(1).
TAIL(1)
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TAIL(1) BSD General Commands Manual TAIL(1)NAME
tail -- display the last part of a file
SYNOPSIS
tail [-F | -f | -r] [-q] [-b number | -c number | -n number] [file ...]
DESCRIPTION
The tail utility displays the contents of file or, by default, its standard input, to the standard output.
The display begins at a byte, line or 512-byte block location in the input. Numbers having a leading plus ('+') sign are relative to the
beginning of the input, for example, ``-c +2'' starts the display at the second byte of the input. Numbers having a leading minus ('-') sign
or no explicit sign are relative to the end of the input, for example, ``-n 2'' displays the last two lines of the input. The default start-
ing location is ``-n 10'', or the last 10 lines of the input.
The options are as follows:
-b number
The location is number 512-byte blocks.
-c number
The location is number bytes.
-f The -f option causes tail to not stop when end of file is reached, but rather to wait for additional data to be appended to the
input. The -f option is ignored if the standard input is a pipe, but not if it is a FIFO.
-F The -F option implies the -f option, but tail will also check to see if the file being followed has been renamed or rotated. The
file is closed and reopened when tail detects that the filename being read from has a new inode number. The -F option is ignored if
reading from standard input rather than a file.
-n number
The location is number lines.
-q Suppresses printing of headers when multiple files are being examined.
-r The -r option causes the input to be displayed in reverse order, by line. Additionally, this option changes the meaning of the -b,
-c and -n options. When the -r option is specified, these options specify the number of bytes, lines or 512-byte blocks to display,
instead of the bytes, lines or blocks from the beginning or end of the input from which to begin the display. The default for the -r
option is to display all of the input.
If more than a single file is specified, each file is preceded by a header consisting of the string ``==> XXX <=='' where XXX is the name of
the file unless -q flag is specified.
EXIT STATUS
The tail utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
SEE ALSO cat(1), head(1), sed(1)STANDARDS
The tail utility is expected to be a superset of the IEEE Std 1003.2-1992 (``POSIX.2'') specification. In particular, the -F, -b and -r
options are extensions to that standard.
The historic command line syntax of tail is supported by this implementation. The only difference between this implementation and historic
versions of tail, once the command line syntax translation has been done, is that the -b, -c and -n options modify the -r option, i.e., ``-r
-c 4'' displays the last 4 characters of the last line of the input, while the historic tail (using the historic syntax ``-4cr'') would
ignore the -c option and display the last 4 lines of the input.
HISTORY
A tail command appeared in PWB UNIX.
BSD June 29, 2006 BSD