Output large file entirely in follow mode similiar to tail -f

Question

Is there a command to output a large file and follow on directly in the shell stdout?

I am aware of less +F or I could simply use tail with an ultimately high n like tail -f -n1000000 if the file is already big, when I call tail but I was wondering if there is a proper way to handle this.

less is not handy in my situation because the files I handle contain carriage returns and the like, which less displays instead of moving the cursor. cat heads the CRbut does not follow and tail -f does not give me the whole picture... basically I guess I am looking for cat -f <single-file>

Answer 1

A collection of suggestions:

• From How do I "cat and follow" a file? (noting that the accepted answer, there, uses the obsolete tail -[num][bcl][f] [file] syntax¹):

  tail -n +1 -f file
  

  It prints the whole file and then keeps following it.

  • As noted by user414777 in a comment, tail doesn't need to care about newline characters in your case and starting from the first byte may be a better option:

    tail -c +1 -f file
    

• As noted by Kamil Maciorowski in a comment, an alternative could be:

  less -r +F 
  

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¹ _{See, for reference, the compatibility notes in the GNU tail documentation.}