ref: 866d74c0c4bb50e85e9e8bb95140c10d409e53be
dir: /man/1/tail/
.TH TAIL 1 .SH NAME tail \- deliver the last part of a file .SH SYNOPSIS .B tail [ .RB [\f5+-\fP] \fInumber\fP [\f5lbc\fP][ rf ] ] [ .I file ] .PP .B tail [ .B -fr ] [ .B -n .I nlines ] [ .B -c .I ncharacters ] [ .I file ] .SH DESCRIPTION .I Tail copies the named file to the standard output beginning at a designated place. If no file is named, the standard input is copied. .PP Copying begins at position .BI + number measured from the beginning, or .BI - number from the end of the input. .I Number is counted in lines, 1K blocks or characters, according to the appended flag .LR l , .LR b , or .LR c . Default is .B -10l (ten ell). .PP The further flag .L r causes tail to print lines from the end of the file in reverse order; .L f (follow) causes .I tail, after printing to the end, to keep watch and print further data as it appears. .PP The second syntax is that promulgated by POSIX, where the numbers of lines (-n) or characters (-c) are specified separately as signed integers. Note than an unsigned value is treated as negative, ie '-n 2' is equivalent to '-n -2'. .PP .SH EXAMPLES .TP .B tail file Print the last 10 lines of a file. .TP .B tail +0f file Print a file, and continue to watch data accumulate as it grows. .br According to custom, option .BI + number counts lines from 1, and counts blocks and characters from 0. .TP .B tail -nlines +3 file Print a file starting at line number 3