projects / thirdparty / util-linux.git / blame
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|---|---|---|
| df1dddf9 KZ |
1 | .\" tailf.1 -- |
| 2 | .\" Created: Thu Jan 11 16:43:10 1996 by faith@acm.org | |
| 3 | .\" Copyright 1996, 2003 Rickard E. Faith (faith@acm.org) | |
| 4 | .\" | |
| 5 | .\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this | |
| 6 | .\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are | |
| 7 | .\" preserved on all copies. | |
| 8 | .\" | |
| 9 | .\" Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this | |
| 10 | .\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the | |
| 11 | .\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a | |
| 12 | .\" permission notice identical to this one. | |
| 13 | .\" | |
| 14 | .\" Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this | |
| 15 | .\" manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date. The author(s) assume no | |
| 16 | .\" responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from | |
| 17 | .\" the use of the information contained herein. The author(s) may not | |
| 18 | .\" have taken the same level of care in the production of this manual, | |
| 19 | .\" which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working | |
| 20 | .\" professionally. | |
| 21 | .\" | |
| 22 | .\" Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by | |
| 23 | .\" the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work. | |
| 24 | .\" | |
| 232dc924 | 25 | .TH TAILF 1 "February 2003" "util-linux" "User Commands" |
| df1dddf9 KZ |
26 | .SH NAME |
| 27 | tailf \- follow the growth of a log file | |
| 28 | .SH SYNOPSIS | |
| cf9fc1df LZ |
29 | .B tailf |
| 30 | [\fIOPTION\fR] \fIfile\fR | |
| df1dddf9 KZ |
31 | .SH DESCRIPTION |
| 32 | .B tailf | |
| 33 | will print out the last 10 lines of a file and then wait for the file to | |
| 34 | grow. It is similar to | |
| 35 | .B tail -f | |
| 36 | but does not access the file when it is not growing. This has the side | |
| 37 | effect of not updating the access time for the file, so a filesystem flush | |
| 38 | does not occur periodically when no log activity is happening. | |
| 39 | .PP | |
| 40 | .B tailf | |
| 41 | is extremely useful for monitoring log files on a laptop when logging is | |
| 42 | infrequent and the user desires that the hard disk spin down to conserve | |
| 43 | battery life. | |
| cf9fc1df LZ |
44 | .PP |
| 45 | Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too. | |
| 46 | .TP | |
| 47 | \fB\-n\fR, \fB\-\-lines\fR=\fIN\fR, \fB\-N\fR | |
| 48 | output the last | |
| 49 | .I N | |
| 50 | lines, instead of the last 10. | |
| 73f5a687 SK |
51 | .TP |
| 52 | \fB\-V\fR, \fB\-\-version | |
| b4362b6f | 53 | Display version information and exit. |
| 73f5a687 SK |
54 | .TP |
| 55 | \fB\-h\fR, \fB\-\-help | |
| b4362b6f | 56 | Display help text and exit. |
| 73f5a687 | 57 | |
| df1dddf9 | 58 | .SH AUTHOR |
| fc7aeb09 | 59 | This program was originally written by Rik Faith (faith@acm.org) and may be freely |
| df1dddf9 KZ |
60 | distributed under the terms of the X11/MIT License. There is ABSOLUTELY |
| 61 | NO WARRANTY for this program. | |
| fc7aeb09 KZ |
62 | |
| 63 | The latest inotify based implementation was written by Karel Zak (kzak@redhat.com). | |
| df1dddf9 | 64 | .SH "SEE ALSO" |
| 66083665 MF |
65 | .BR tail (1), |
| 66 | .BR less (1) | |
| 86d62711 | 67 | .SH AVAILABILITY |
| 601d12fb KZ |
68 | The tailf command is part of the util-linux package and is available from |
| 69 | ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/. |