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researchv10 Dan Cross

.TH TAIL 1
.CT 1 files
.SH NAME
tail, readslow \- deliver the last part of a file
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B tail
[
.BR +- \fInumber\fP[ lbc ][ rf ]
]
[
.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 used.
.PP
Copying begins at distance
.BI + number
from the beginning, or
.BI - number
from the end of the input.
.I Number
is counted in units of lines, 1K blocks or characters,
according to the appended flag
.BR l ,
.BR b ,
or
.BR c .
Defaults are
.BR -10l .
.PP
The further flag
.B r
causes tail to print lines from the end of the file in reverse order;
.B f
(follow) causes
.I tail,
after printing to the end, to keep watch and
print further data as it appears.
.SH EXAMPLES
.TP
.B tail file
Print the last 10 lines of a file.
.TP
.L tail +0f file
Print a file, and continue to watch
data accumulate as it grows.
This function was once called
.I readslow.
.TP
.L sed 10q file
Print the first 10 lines of a file.
Some systems call this function
.I head.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.IR dd (1)
.SH BUGS
Tails relative to the end of the file
are treasured up in a buffer, and thus
are limited in length.
.br
Various kinds of anomalous behavior may happen
with character special files.

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