Detailed explanation of tail command in Linux

The tail command is a command line tool used in Linux and Unix systems. It is used to display the end content of the file. It can be displayed starting from the last line of the file. By default, the last 10 lines of the file are displayed. Basically The syntax is "tail [option] [file]". The tail command operates in line units by default, but the unit can also be changed through other options.

The tail command is a command line tool used in Linux and Unix systems to display the content at the end of a file. It can start displaying from the last line of the file, and by default displays the last 10 lines of the file.

The basic syntax of the tail command is as follows:

tail [选项] [文件]

Commonly used options include:

• -n : Specify the number of lines to be displayed. For example, tail -n 20 file.txt will display the last 20 lines of the file file.txt.
• -f: Track file changes in real time and continuously display new content. Suitable for viewing dynamically updated files such as log files.

Here are some examples of common tail commands:

1. Display the last 10 lines of the file:

   tail file.txt

2. Display the file The last 20 lines of:

   tail -n 20 file.txt

3. Track file changes in real time:

   tail -f log.txt

4. Display the last few lines of multiple files:

   tail -n 5 file1.txt file2.txt

It should be noted that the tail command operates in line units by default, but the unit can also be changed through other options, such as bytes (-c) or block numbers (-b).

In addition, the tail command also supports some other options and parameters. You can use the man tail command to view the complete help documentation.

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