tail

keep trying to open a file even if it is inaccessible when tail starts or if it becomes inaccessible later -- useful only with -f

output the last N bytes

equivalent to the -f option

equivalent to the -n option

When tailing a file by name, if there have been this many consecutive iterations for which the size has remained the same, then open/fstat the file to determine if that file name is still associated with the same device/inode-number pair as before.

This option is meaningful only when following by name. Use it to control how long tail follows the descriptor of a file that continues growing at a rapid pace even after it is deleted or renamed. After detecting N consecutive size changes for a file, open/fstat the file to determine if that file name is still associated with the same device/inode-number pair as before.

with -f, terminate after process ID, PID dies

never output headers giving file names

with -f, sleep S seconds between iterations

always output headers giving file names

This option does not support the c or l suffixes as stated in the SUS. The suffixes b, k, m are supported instead which refer to multipliers 512, 1024 and 1048576 respectively.