1TAILF(1)                   Linux Programmer's Manual                  TAILF(1)
2
3
4

NAME

6       tailf - follow the growth of a log file
7

SYNOPSIS

9       tailf file
10

DESCRIPTION

12       tailf  will print out the last 10 lines of a file and then wait for the
13       file to grow.  It is similar to tail -f but does not  access  the  file
14       when  it  is not growing.  This has the side effect of not updating the
15       access time for the file, so a filesystem flush does not occur periodi‐
16       cally when no log activity is happening.
17
18       tailf  is  extremely  useful  for monitoring log files on a laptop when
19       logging is infrequent and the user desires that the hard disk spin down
20       to conserve battery life.
21

BUGS

23       An  option  could  be provided to print out the last n lines instead of
24       the last 10.
25

AUTHOR

27       This program was written by Rik Faith (faith@acm.org) and may be freely
28       distributed  under  the  terms  of the X11/MIT License.  There is ABSO‐
29       LUTELY NO WARRANTY for this program.
30

SEE ALSO

32       tail(1), less(1)
33
34
35
36                               13 February 2003                       TAILF(1)