HPR1042: LiTS 012: tail

The tail command is used to print out the last 10 lines of a file to standard out. This command is a staple in a system administrator’s tool kit and especially handy when monitoring log files. The basic syntax is:

tail some_file

Which will output the last 10 lines of the file. You can alter the number of lines with the -n, or –lines=, flag:

tail -n20 some_file
tail –lines=20 some_file

In some versions of tail you can get away with specifying the number of lines from the end with just a “-” and number:

tail -30 some_file

Instead of working backwards with the -n command you can specify a “+” and some number to start from that number and list the contents to the end:

tail -n+30 some_file

This will display the contents of some_file from line 30 to the end of the file.

For the complete write up including video please go to https://www.linuxintheshell.com/2012/07/31/episode-012-tail/

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