I want to read whole file and make it waiting for input, just like tail -f but with the complete file displayed.
The length of this file will always change, because this is a .log file.
How can I do it, if I don't know length of the file?
4 Answers
There is a way better way of achieving this:
less +F <file>
It'll show you the whole file, has the full power of less and will wait for new input. If you want to stop waiting for input, and read a specific part, you can stop it with ^C and resume with F.
The F command is always available in less, if you decide to watch for changes while having a file open in less, hitting F will turn it on. Thanks to hiergiltdiestfu and wildcard for pointing that out.
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2This is indeed much better than
tail. Thanks for the tip; I would never have thought of usinglessfor this. Note for others: You can also just runless <file>and then typeF.– WildcardApr 28, 2016 at 21:11
tail lets you add -n to specify the number of lines to display from the end, which can be used in conjunction with -f. If the argument for -n starts with + that is the count of lines from the beginning (0 and 1 displaying the whole file, 2 indicating skip the first line, as indicated by @Ben). So just do:
tail -f -n +0 filename
If your log files get rotated, you can add --retry (or combine -f and --retry into -F as @Hagen suggested)
Also note that in a graphical terminal, you can use the mouse and PageUp/PageDown to scroll back into the history (assuming your buffer is large enough), this information stays there even if you use Ctrl+C to exit tail. If you use less this is far less convenient and AFAIK you have to use the keyboard for scrolling and I don't know of a means to keep less from deinitialising termcap if you forget to start it with -X.
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1+1 Your answer appeared as soon as I posted mine and although mine works, yours is better. Apr 28, 2016 at 5:07
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1I got the message while I was still typing that another answer was there and that I should click to refresh. Your answer would get the job done, but I would not be surprised that counting from the beginning ( forced with the
+) is implemented more efficiently.– AnthonApr 28, 2016 at 5:12 -
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+1for teaching me about+0. You may want-Finstead of-ffor rotating logfiles Apr 28, 2016 at 15:22 -
I think there's an off-by-one here.
tail -n +1shows the beginning of the file for me, andtail -n +2skips one line. I think the number is the line number of the first displayed line. Apr 28, 2016 at 20:51 -
1
watch command should do that for you.
You can also try
less +FG
You will have more options with less command to scroll through your file as you say it's a large file.
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7
In addition to /u/Anthon's answer, you can do something like:
{ cat filename; tail -0f filename; }
That -0 option to tail is equivalent to -n 0, meaning: dispaly 0 lines. But the -f will display new lines.
You don't need the braces { }. I used them because sometimes you want to redirect the filedescriptors in some way. For instance:
{ cat ; tail -0f -; } < /var/log/messages
Noted by Ben Milwood: you could have a race condition where the file grows between the end of the cat operation and beginning of tail operation. But again, this is an "academic" problem to an academic solution.
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3If the file grows between when the
catfinishes and thetailstarts, you won't see those lines. Unlikely to be a big deal, but a reason to prefer the pure-tailsolution. Apr 28, 2016 at 20:53 -
I think
{ cat; tail -n +0 -f; } < filewould fix the race, because tail will print any new data that appears betweencat's exit andtail's startup. Of course, it makes thecatredundant. The redirection only happens once, andtail's stdin is the file descriptor thatcatalready read out to EOF, so its current position is wherecatstopped. You can test it by putting anecho foo >> fileinside the{}, to create the race every time. Apr 29, 2016 at 17:00
lesshas the "F" key. Useful if you need interaction.