Linux in a Nutshell, Fifth Edition

talkd | 457

Linux

Commands

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--max-unchanged-stats=num

Used with --follow=name to reopen a file whose size hasn’t

changed after num iterations (default 5), to see if it has been

unlinked or renamed (as with rotated logfiles).

--pid=pid

Used with -f to end when process ID pid dies.

-q, --quiet, --silent

Suppress filename headers.

--retry

With -f, keep trying to open a file even if it isn’t accessible

when tail starts or if it becomes inaccessible later.

-s sec, --sleep-interval=sec

With -f, sleep approximately sec seconds between iterations.

Default is 1 second.

-v, --verbose

With multiple files, always output the filename headers.

--version

Print version information and then exit.

Examples

Show the last 20 lines containing instances of .Ah:

grep '\.Ah' file | tail -20

Show the last 10 characters of variable name:

echo "$name" | tail -c

Print the last two blocks of bigfile:

tail -2b bigfile

tailf

tailf file

Print the last 10 lines of a file, then wait for the file to grow. tailf is

similar to tail -f, but it does nothing when the file is not growing.

Useful for following a logfile, particularly on a laptop when you

want to conserve the battery power.

talk

talk person [ttyname]

Talk to another user. person is either the login name of someone on

your own machine or user@host on another host. To talk to a user ...