Subject: Re: tail argument(s) continue
To: Trouble Free RecepPFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF <greywolf@starwolf.starwolf.com>
From: David Maxwell <david@fundy.ca>
List: current-users
Date: 08/18/1997 11:57:20
The real question for me is intuitiveness. See if this is logical...

cat means 'concatenate this file to (by default) my terminal'

	or - 'show me this file'

tail means 'send the end of this file to (by default) my terminal'

	or - 'show me the end of this file'

tail -f means 'show me the end of this file and keep showing me as more is
		added to it'


So which makes more sense for someone? (leave historical Unix experience out of
					this)

cat -f 'show me this file and keep showing me as more is added to it'

or 

tail +0f (or your favorite combo) 'show me the end of this file, starting from
					the beginning of the file and keep 
					showing me as more is added to it'

My point is that just because the functionality is in tail shouldn't exclude
it from cat. Someone looking for this feature might never think to use tail
to do this, if they really do want the whole file.

							David Maxwell
							david@vex.net

> Alan Barrett sez:
> /*
>  * > Finally, I was thinking a -f flag to cat (cat -f <=> tail -f) would be
>  * > useful.  comments?  
>  * 
>  * I don't see any need to add another option to cat for this.
>  * --apb (Alan Barrett)
>  */
> 
> I don't see any reason to have changed the arg syntax to tail, either.