coreutils/tail/README.md

Rudimentary tail implementation.

##Missing features:

Flags with features

• --bytes : output the last K bytes; alternatively, use -c +K to output bytes starting with the Kth of each file
• --max-unchanged-stats : with --follow=name, reopen a FILE which has not changed size after N (default 5) iterations to see if it has been unlinked or renamed (this is the usual case of rotated log files). With inotify, this option is rarely useful.
• --pid : with -f, terminate after process ID, PID dies
• --quiet : never output headers giving file names
• --retry : keep trying to open a file even when it is or becomes inaccessible; useful when follow‐ing by name, i.e., with --follow=name
• --verbose : always output headers giving file names

Others

The current implementation does not handle - as an alias for stdin.

##Possible optimizations:

• Don't read the whole file if not using -f and input is regular file. Read in chunks from the end going backwards, reading each individual chunk forward.