.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1990, 1991 Regents of the University of California.
.\" All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
.\" the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
.\"
.\" %sccs.include.redist.roff%
.\"
.\"	@(#)tail.1	6.6 (Berkeley) 06/27/91
.\"
.Dd 
.Dt TAIL 1
.Os BSD 4
.Sh NAME
.Nm tail
.Nd deliver the last part of a file
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm tail
.Oo Cm \\*(Pm Ns Ar number
.Op Ns Cm lbc Op Ns Cm fr
.Oc
.Op Ar file
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm tail
utility copies its input file to the standard output
beginning at a designated place.
The argument
.Ar number
is counted in
units of blocks, characters or lines (default),
according to the appended option suffixes
.Cm b , c
and
.Cm l .
Copying begins at the point in the file indicated by the
.Cm \\*(Pm Ns Ar number
option, where
.Cm + Ns Ar number
is a positive offset relative to the beginning of the file
and
.Cm \&- Ns Ar number
is a negative offset relative to the end of the file or standard
input.
.Pp
Appended options:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Cm b
The argument
.Ar number
refers to blocks.
.It Cm c
The argument
.Ar number
refers to characters (bytes).
.It Cm f
Specifying
.Cm f
causes
.Nm tail
to not quit at end of file, but rather wait and try to read repeatedly
in hopes that the file will grow.
.It Cm l
The argument
.Ar number
refers to line.
.It Cm r
Lines are printed from
.Ar file
in reverse order.
The default for
.Ar r
is to print the entire file this way.
.El
.Pp
The
.Nm tail
utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr dd 1
.Sh BUGS
The behaviour of
.Nm tail
on binary or special files is unpredictable.
.Sh HISTORY
A
.Nm
command appeared in
.At v7 .