Subject: Re: tail follow multiple files?
To: Simon Burge <simonb@wasabisystems.com>
From: David Laight <david@l8s.co.uk>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 07/02/2005 15:24:37
On Sat, Jul 02, 2005 at 10:20:45PM +1000, Simon Burge wrote:
> "Jeremy C. Reed" wrote:
> 
> > Any interest in having tail follow multiple files?
> 
> pkgsrc/misc/xtail works well.  For example, it notices when a file
> is removed and reopened, which works well for log files.

'tail -F' will also notice a file being unlinked and recreated.
You don't want this to be the default behaviour as it is expensive.

Since tail only processes a single file at a time, tail -f on multple
files just doesn't make sense.
If you want the merged output from many files just run multiple copies
of tail -f in the background....

	David

-- 
David Laight: david@l8s.co.uk