Commands using tail sorted by votes

Commands using tail (292)

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Watch end of files real time, especially log files

Changes are displayed when they are written to the file to exit Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
$ tail -f /home/ubuntu/.bash_history 
uptime 
echo hello
exit
```
-1

tail -f ~/.bash_history

totti · 2011-09-15 19:35:09 3
speak a chat log file while it's running

like #9295, but awkish instead of perlish
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

tail -f LOGFILE | awk '{system("say \"" $0 "\"");}'

tamouse · 2011-09-16 06:20:06 9
random git-commit message

Put in your path (.bashrc or similar). Then instead of running '$ git-commit -m ' use '$ git-random'
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

git-random(){ gitRan=$(curl -L -s http://whatthecommit.com/ |grep -A 1 "\"c" |tail -1 |sed 's/<p>//'); git commit -m "$gitRan"; }

unixmonkey32483 · 2012-03-07 22:25:14 1002
a tail function for automatic smart output

tail() { thbin="/usr/bin/tail"; if [ "${1:0:1}" != "-" ]; then fc=$(($#==0?1:$#)); lpf="$((($LINES - 3 - 2 * $fc) / $fc))"; lpf="$(($lpf<1?2:$lpf))"; [ $fc -eq 1 ] && $thbin -n $lpf "$@" | /usr/bin/fold -w $COLUMNS | $thbin -n $lpf || $thbin -n $lpf "$@"; else $thbin "$@"; fi; unset lpf fc thbin; } This is a function that implements an improved version of tail. It tries to limit the number of lines so that the screen is filled completely. It works with pipes, single and multiple files. If you add different options to tail, they will overwrite the settings from the function. It doesn't work very well when too many files (with wrapped lines) are specified. Its optimised for my three-line prompt. It also works for head. Just s/tail/head/g Don't set 'thbin="tail"', this might lead to a forkbomb.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

tail() { thbin="/usr/bin/tail"; if [ "${1:0:1}" != "-" ]; then fc=$(($#==0?1:$#)); lpf="$((($LINES - 3 - 2 * $fc) / $fc))"; lpf="$(($lpf<1?2:$lpf))"; [ $fc -eq 1 ] && $thbin -n $lpf "$@" | /usr/bin/fold -w $COLUMNS | $thbin -n $lpf || $thbin -n $lpf...

fpunktk · 2012-03-23 19:00:30 3
Get current stable kernel version string from kernel.org
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

curl -s kernel.org | grep '<strong>' | head -3 | tail -1 | cut -d'>' -f3 | cut -d'<' -f1

mdix · 2012-06-15 21:28:42 22
Realtime lines per second in a log file

logtop show number of lines per second, also classify them so you can show a "top" of every aspect of your logfile : tail -f access.log | awk '{print $1; fflush();}' | logtop
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

tail -f logfile | logtop

Sizeof · 2012-06-24 19:18:30 3
Compile CoffeeScript on Mac clipboard to JavaScript and print it

This particular combination of flags mimics Try CoffeeScript (on http://coffeescript.org/#try:) as closely as possible. And the `tail` call removes the comment `// Generated by CoffeeScript 1.6.3`. See `coffee -h` for explanation of `coffee`'s flags. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
foo("abc", function() {
  return "blah";
});


(given this text on the clipboard:)
foo "abc", ->
  "blah"
```
-1

pbpaste | coffee -bcsp | tail -n +2

roryokane · 2013-09-13 04:50:27 13
find all minimum values in file with at least 100 lines
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

for ff in directory; do numLines=`wc -l $ff`; numLines=$(echo $numLines | sed 's/ .*//g'); min=$(sort -nrk 1 $ff | tail -1); if [ $numLines -gt 100 ]; then echo $min >> minValues; fi;done;

user1234 · 2013-09-23 04:04:52 7
get line#1000 from text.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-2

head -1000 < lines.txt | tail -1

wbx · 2009-02-08 06:41:20 15
View new log messages in real time

Use this command to see logs update in real time
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-2

tail -f /var/log/messages

nicdev · 2009-02-12 19:30:33 10
print random commandlinefu.com submission

ok I'm sure it's not pretty Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
Terminal - runs a bash script in debugging mode    
bash -x ./post_to_commandlinefu.sh
```
-2

lynx -source http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/random | sed 's/<[^>]*>//g' | head -1037 | tail -10 | sed -e 's/^[ \t]*//' | sed '/^$/d' | head -2

lxtips · 2009-06-02 09:48:59 11
How far is Mac OS X 10.6 from 64-bit?

Not as far off as you thought, now is it? -mac fanboy Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
127	Mach-O 64-bit kext bundle x86_64
140	Mach-O object i386
```
-2

file /System/Library/Extensions/*.kext/Contents/MacOS/* |grep -i x86_64 |nl | tail -1 | cut -f1 -f3; file /System/Library/Extensions/*.kext/Contents/MacOS/* |grep -i "mach-o object i386" |nl | tail -1 | cut -f1 -f3

digitalshadow · 2009-09-11 16:43:27 4
tail, with specific pattern colored

but you can't see the colors in that sample output :( Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
seq 1111 1122|egrep --color=always $\|12
1111
1112
1113
1114
1115
1116
1117
1118
1119
1120
1121
1122
```
-2

tail -f file | egrep --color=always $\|PATTERN

sitaram · 2009-10-15 13:08:30 13
Monitor the Kernel Ring Buffer

Useful with new unknown devices or just monitoring, probably useful for the sysadmin. Updates every 2 seconds. More here: http://linuxclisecurity.blogspot.com/2009/12/monitor-kernel-ring-buffer.html.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-2

watch 'dmesg | tail -15'

Heoa · 2009-12-20 02:00:05 3
Generate background office noise using Digg feeds and OSX.

Instead of having someone else read you the Digg headlines, Have OSX do it. Requires Curl+Sed+Say. This could probably be easily modified to use espeak for Linux.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-2

IFS=`echo -en "\n\b"`; for i in $(curl http://feeds.digg.com/digg/container/technology/popular.rss | grep '<title>' | sed -e 's#<[^>]*>##g' | tail -n10); do echo $i; echo $i | sed 's/^/Did you hear about /g' | say; sleep 30; done

echosedawk · 2010-06-07 22:16:19 4
Grep with one result at a time

Not perfect but working (at least on the project i wrote it ;) ) Specify what you want search in var search, then it grep the folder and show one result at a time. Press enter and then it will show the next result. It can work bad on result in the firsts lines, and it can be improved to allow to come back. But in my case (a large project, i was checking if a value wasn't used withouth is corresponding const and the value is "1000" so there was a lot of result ...) it was perfect ;)
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-2

search="whatyouwant";data=$(grep "$search" * -R --exclude-dir=.svn -B2 -A2);for((i=$(echo "$data" | wc -l);$i>0;i=$(($i-6)) )); do clear;echo "$data"| tail -n $i | head -n 5; read;done

Juluan · 2011-08-29 18:14:16 4
Show the single most recently modified file in a directory

List all files in a directory in reverse order by modified timestamp. When piped through tail the user will see the most recent file name.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-2

ls -lFart |tail -n1

jambino · 2011-10-17 19:49:14 7
tail a log over ssh
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-2

ssh remotebox tail -f /var/log/remotelog

netaxiz · 2011-12-13 17:35:54 3
Get the date for the last Saturday of a given month

This is a little trickier than finding the last Sunday, because you know the last Sunday is in the first position of the last line. The trick is to use the NF less than or equal to 7 so it picks up all the lines then grep out any empty lines. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
28
```
-2

cal 04 2012 | awk 'NF <= 7 { print $7 }' | grep -v "^$" | tail -1

javidjamae · 2012-05-03 16:57:45 764
Re-execute a command using a saved /proc/pid/cmdline file

Replace $CMDLINE_FILENAME with the name of the cmdline file you copied from /proc/pid, and $COMMAND with the command to execute with those arguments.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-2

tail -zn+2 $CMDLINE_FILENAME | xargs -0 $COMMAND

Sparkette · 2020-06-23 05:31:45 118

Quick scrape of recent mobile home dir file sync for Mac Admins - tested with shell: bash, Mac OSX 10.5

tail would be considered dull, but pair this with being able to push out unix commands over ARD, and life gets easier. (Same can be said for my TimeMachine scrape command, http://xrl.us/begrzb) Show Sample Output

-3

tail -n 20 ~/Library/Logs/FileSyncAgent.log

sacrilicious · 2009-02-19 05:05:21 6

Get top 10 largest directories under cwd

The pipe to head removes the listing of . as the largest directory.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-3

du | sort -n | tail -11 | head

phage · 2009-03-04 16:06:34 9
show system installation date
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-3

tune2fs -l $(df -P / | tail -n1 | cut -d' ' -f1 ) | grep 'Filesystem created:'

christian773 · 2010-05-29 08:15:25 4
to perform operation line by line in a file without using sed or awk

Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
here $i is line number on which you want to perform some action
```
-3

s=`head -$i fileName | tail -1`

harish · 2010-10-19 08:45:40 6
View last 100 lines of your SSH log
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-3

tail /var/log/auth.log -n 100

authtoken · 2011-05-29 21:00:58 4
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Fetch the Gateway Ip Address

This is to fetch the Gateway Ip Address of a machine. Use the below format to put the value in a variable if you wish to find the gateway ip in a script $GATEWAY=$(netstat -nr | awk 'BEGIN {while ($3!="0.0.0.0") getline; print $2}')

Revert all modified files in an SVN repo

Ctrl+S Ctrl+Q terminal output lock and unlock

These are simple shortcuts to pause and continue terminal output, works in most terminals and screen multiplexers like screen. You can use it to catch something if things change too fast, and scroll with Shift + PgUp PgDown. On linux console ScrollLock can also be used.

Insert a colon between every two digits

I sometimes have large files of MAC addresses stored in a file, some databases need the information stored with the semicolon (makes for easier programming a device) others don't. I have a barcode to text file scanner which usually butchers MAC addresses so this was the fix> I initially did this in awk ;) awk '{for(i=10;i>=2;i-=2)$0=substr($0,1,i)":"substr($0,i+1);print}' mac_address_list

Find the package that installed a command

Replace all in last command

Get AWS temporary credentials ready to export based on a MFA virtual appliance

You might want to secure your AWS operations requiring to use a MFA token. But then to use API or tools, you need to pass credentials generated with a MFA token. This commands asks you for the MFA code and retrieves these credentials using AWS Cli. To print the exports, you can use: `awk '{ print "export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=\"" $1 "\"\n" "export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=\"" $2 "\"\n" "export AWS_SESSION_TOKEN=\"" $3 "\"" }'` You must adapt the command line to include: * $MFA_IDis ARN of the virtual MFA or serial number of the physical one * TTL for the credentials

Number of CPU's in a system

/proc/cpuinfo contains information about the CPU. Search for "processor" in the /proc/cpuinfo file wc -l, counts the number of lines.

geoip information

Not my script. Belongs to mathewbauer. Used without his permission. This script gives a single line as shown in the sample output. NOTE: I have blanked out the IP address for obvious security reasons. But you will get whatever is your IP if you run the script. Tested working in bash.

Recursively search and replace old with new string, inside every instance of filename.ext

This is a slightly modified version of http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/4283/recursive-search-and-replace-old-with-new-string-inside-files (which did not work due to incorrect syntax) with the added option to sed inside only files named filename.ext

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Commands using tail (292)

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