tail
tail [FLAG]... [FILE]...
Print the last 10 lines of each FILE to standard output. With more than one FILE, precede each with a header giving the file name. With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.
Mandatory arguments to long flags are mandatory for short flags too.
Options
--bytes,-c-
Number of bytes to print
--follow,-f-
Print the file as it grows
--lines,-n-
Number of lines to print
--pid=<PID>-
With -f, terminate after process ID, PID dies
--quiet,--silent,-q-
Never output headers giving file names
--sleep-interval=<N>,-s <N>-
Number of seconds to sleep between polling the file when running with -f
--max-unchanged-stats=<N>-
Reopen a FILE which has not changed size after N (default 5) iterations to see if it has been unlinked or renamed (this is the usual case of rotated log files); This option is meaningful only when polling (i.e., with --use-polling) and when --follow=name
--verbose,-v-
Always output headers giving file names
--zero-terminated,-z-
Line delimiter is NUL, not newline
--use-polling-
Disable 'inotify' support and use polling instead
--retry-
Keep trying to open a file if it is inaccessible
-F-
Same as --follow=name --retry
--presume-input-pipe
Examples
Show last 'count' lines in file:
tail {{[-n|--lines]}} {{count}} {{path/to/file}}
Print a file from a specific line number:
tail {{[-n|--lines]}} +{{count}} {{path/to/file}}
Print a specific count of bytes from the end of a given file:
tail {{[-c|--bytes]}} {{count}} {{path/to/file}}
Print the last lines of a given file and keep reading it until <Ctrl c>:
tail {{[-f|--follow]}} {{path/to/file}}
Keep reading file until <Ctrl c>, even if the file is inaccessible:
tail {{[-F|--retry --follow]}} {{path/to/file}}
Show last 'num' lines in 'file' and refresh every 'n' seconds:
tail {{[-n|--lines]}} {{count}} {{[-s|--sleep-interval]}} {{seconds}} {{[-f|--follow]}} {{path/to/file}}
The examples are provided by the tldr-pages project under the CC BY 4.0 License.
Please note that, as uutils is a work in progress, some examples might fail.