tail(1)								       tail(1)

NAME    [Toc]    [Back]

     tail - deliver the	last part of a file

SYNOPSIS    [Toc]    [Back]

     tail [ -f ] [ -c number | -n number ] [ file ]
     tail [ +_ number <b>lbcr ] [ file ]
     tail [ -lbcr ] [ file ]
     tail [ +_ number <b>lbcf ] [ file ]
     tail [ -lbcf ] [ file ]

DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]

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

     Copying begins at distance	+number	from the beginning, or -number from
     the end of	the input (if number is	null, the value	10 is assumed).	 If
     the -c or -n options are used, number is assumed to be negative unless a
     + sign is prepended.  Number is counted in	units of lines,	blocks,	or
     characters, according to the appended/prepended option l/-n, b, or	c/-c.
     When no units are specified, counting is by lines.	 tail processes
     supplementary code	set characters according to the	locale specified in
     the LC_CTYPE environment variable [see LANG on environ(5)], except	that
     multibyte characters may not be displayed correctly when the -b and -c
     options are specified.

     With the -f (follow) option, if the input file is not a pipe, the program
     will not terminate	after the line of the input file has been copied, but
     will enter	an endless loop, wherein it sleeps for a second	and then
     attempts to read and copy further records from the	input file.  Thus it
     may be used to monitor the	growth of a file that is being written by some
     other process.  For example, the command:

	  tail -f fred

     will print	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 -15cf fred

     will print	the last 15 characters of the file fred, followed by any lines
     that are appended to fred between the time	tail is	initiated and killed.

     The r option copies lines from the	specified starting point relative to
     the end of	the file (regardless of	the sign) in reverse order.  The
     default for r is to print the entire file in reverse order.

     The r and f options are mutually exclusive.







									Page 1






tail(1)								       tail(1)



FILES
     /usr/lib/locale/locale<b>/LC_MESSAGES/uxcore.abi
	  language-specific message file [See LANG on environ (5).]

SEE ALSO    [Toc]    [Back]

     cat(1), head(1), more(1), pg(1), tail(1), dd(1M)

NOTES    [Toc]    [Back]

     Tails relative to the end of the file are stored in a buffer, and thus
     are limited in length.  Various kinds of anomalous	behavior may happen
     with character special files.  The	tail command will only tail the	last
     256 Kbytes	of a file regardless of	its line count.


									PPPPaaaaggggeeee 2222