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 12
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
‹ First < 9 10 11 12 >

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Take screenshot through SSH

When connected to a box via ssh you can do a quick screenshot of that box using this command. After that you can rscp it over to your box and look at it.

Remove security limitations from PDF documents using ghostscript (for Windows)

#4345 also works under windows

Forward port 8888 to remote machine for SOCKS Proxy

Simply change your web browser's proxy settings to point to a SOCKS proxy at port 8888 and you're good to go.

Number of CPU's in a system

this works for a Linux based system, other UNIX systems may have other way(s) to check the number of CPUs.

Umount only the NFS related to 'string'

Sometimes, you have a lot of NFS in the server and you can't or shouldn't use umount -a. Whis this command, you only umount the fs related to the 'string'

Convert seconds to [DD:][HH:]MM:SS

Converts any number of seconds into days, hours, minutes and seconds. sec2dhms() { declare -i SS="$1" D=$(( SS / 86400 )) H=$(( SS % 86400 / 3600 )) M=$(( SS % 3600 / 60 )) S=$(( SS % 60 )) [ "$D" -gt 0 ] && echo -n "${D}:" [ "$H" -gt 0 ] && printf "%02g:" "$H" printf "%02g:%02g\n" "$M" "$S" }

Which processes are listening on a specific port (e.g. port 80)

swap out "80" for your port of interest. Can use port number or named ports e.g. "http"

Set laptop display brightness

Run as root. Path may vary depending on laptop model and video card (this was tested on an Acer laptop with ATI HD3200 video). $ cat /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness to discover the possible values for your display.

Encode text in Base64 using Perl

MIME::Base64 is a part of Perl5 distribution. You can also use decode_base64 for oposite result.

find and delete files smaller than specific size

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Commands using tail (292)

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