TAILF(1) Linux Programmer’s Manual TAILF(1)
NAME
tailf - follow the growth of a log file
SYNOPSIS
tailf file
DESCRIPTION
tailf will print out the last 10 lines of a file and then wait for the
file to grow. It is similar to tail -f but does not access the file
when it is not growing. This has the side effect of not updating the
access time for the file, so a filesystem flush does not occur periodi-
cally when no log activity is happening.
tailf is extremely useful for monitoring log files on a laptop when
logging is infrequent and the user desires that the hard disk spin down
to conserve battery life.
BUGS
An option could be provided to print out the last n lines instead of
the last 10.
AUTHOR
This program was written by Rik Faith (faith@acm.org) and may be freely
distributed under the terms of the X11/MIT License. There is ABSO-
LUTELY NO WARRANTY for this program.
SEE ALSO
tail(1), less(1)
13 February 2003 TAILF(1)
