From 3f8478a71ccde6883d4c81b7e65561a106653b28 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Ruediger Meier Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2015 16:09:36 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] tailf: deprecated We want to remove it in 2 years, March 2017. See discussion "tailf, really needed?" http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.utilities.util-linux-ng/10967 [kzak@redhat.com: - move warning to usage()] Signed-off-by: Ruediger Meier Signed-off-by: Karel Zak --- Documentation/deprecated.txt | 5 +++++ tests/expected/tailf/simple | 1 + text-utils/tailf.1 | 6 ++++++ text-utils/tailf.c | 14 ++++++++++---- 4 files changed, 22 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) diff --git a/Documentation/deprecated.txt b/Documentation/deprecated.txt index fc31ece5d0..11f4d1fa35 100644 --- a/Documentation/deprecated.txt +++ b/Documentation/deprecated.txt @@ -3,6 +3,11 @@ deprecated utils are in maintenance mode and we keep them in source tree for backward compatibility only. +what: tailf +why: "tail -f" is better nowadays, tailf has unfixed bugs + +-------------------------- + what: sfdisk --show-size why: this does not belong to fdisk, use "blockdev --getsz" diff --git a/tests/expected/tailf/simple b/tests/expected/tailf/simple index ddf72de364..5edc76b2e3 100644 --- a/tests/expected/tailf/simple +++ b/tests/expected/tailf/simple @@ -1,2 +1,3 @@ +tailf: warning: use of 'tailf' is deprecated, use 'tail -f' instead a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 diff --git a/text-utils/tailf.1 b/text-utils/tailf.1 index d59c5317b7..9c6bd6adea 100644 --- a/text-utils/tailf.1 +++ b/text-utils/tailf.1 @@ -29,6 +29,12 @@ tailf \- follow the growth of a log file [option] .I file .SH DESCRIPTION +.B tailf is deprecated. +It may have unfixed bugs and will be removed in March 2017. Nowadays it's safe +to use +.B tail -f +(coreutils) in contrast to the original documentation below. +.PP .B tailf will print out the last 10 lines of the given \fIfile\fR and then wait for this \fIfile\fR to grow. It is similar to diff --git a/text-utils/tailf.c b/text-utils/tailf.c index 603904924f..d05987af7b 100644 --- a/text-utils/tailf.c +++ b/text-utils/tailf.c @@ -19,13 +19,18 @@ * OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, * ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR * OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. + */ + +/* + * This command is deprecated. The utility is in maintenance mode, + * meaning we keep them in source tree for backward compatibility + * only. Do not waste time making this command better, unless the + * fix is about security or other very critical issue. * - * less -F and tail -f cause a disk access every five seconds. This - * program avoids this problem by waiting for the file size to change. - * Hence, the file is not accessed, and the access time does not need to be - * flushed back to disk. This is sort of a "stealth" tail. + * See Documentation/deprecated.txt for more information. */ + #include #include #include @@ -202,6 +207,7 @@ static void __attribute__ ((__noreturn__)) usage(FILE *out) fputs(USAGE_HELP, out); fputs(USAGE_VERSION, out); fprintf(out, USAGE_MAN_TAIL("tailf(1)")); + fputs(_("Warning: use of 'tailf' is deprecated, use 'tail -f' instead.\n"), out); exit(out == stderr ? EXIT_FAILURE : EXIT_SUCCESS); } -- 2.39.5