TAILF(1)		  Linux Programmer's Manual		     TAILF(1)



NAME
       tailf - follow the growth of a log file

SYNOPSIS
       tailf file

DESCRIPTION
       tailf will print out the last 10 lines of a file and then wait for the
       file to grow.  It is similar to tail -f but does not access  the	 file
       when  it is not growing.	 This has the side effect of not updating the
       access time for the file, so a filesystem flush does not occur period-
       ically when no log activity is happening.

       tailf  is  extremely  useful for monitoring log files on a laptop when
       logging is infrequent and the user desires that	the  hard  disk	 spin
       down to conserve battery life.

BUGS
       An  option  could be provided to print out the last n lines instead of
       the last 10.

AUTHOR
       This program was written by  Rik	 Faith	(faith@acm.org)	 and  may  be
       freely  distributed  under the terms of the X11/MIT License.  There is
       ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY for this program.

SEE ALSO
       tail(1), less(1)



			       13 February 2003			     TAILF(1)

UNIX/Linux commands referenced on this page:

1. last
2. file
3. tail
4. time