Linux Pocket Guide, 2nd Edition

Name

tail — stdin  stdout  - file  -- opt  --help  --version

Synopsis

tail [options] [files]

The tail command prints the last 10 lines of a file, and does other tricks as well.

$ tail myfile

The ultra-useful -f option causes tail to watch a file actively while another program is writing to it, displaying new lines as they are written to the file. This is invaluable for watching log files in active use:

$ tail -f /var/log/messages

Useful options

-N	Print the last N lines of the file instead of 10.
-n N	Print the last N lines of the file instead of 10.
-n +N	Print all lines except the first N.
-c N	Print the last N bytes of the file.
-f	Keep the file open, and whenever lines are appended to the file, print them. This is extremely useful. Add the --retry option if the file doesn’t exist yet, but you want to wait for it to exist.
-q	Quiet mode: when processing more than one file, don’t print a banner above each file. Normally tail prints a banner containing the filename.