>From the documentation for coreutils: ,----[ (coreutils)tail invocation ] | On older systems, `tail' supports an obsolete option | `-COUNTOPTIONS', which is recognized only if it is specified first. | COUNT is a decimal number optionally followed by a size letter (`b', | `k', `m') as in `-c', or `l' to mean count by lines, or other option | letters (`cfqv'). Some older `tail' implementations also support an | obsolete option `+COUNT' with the same meaning as `-+COUNT'. POSIX | 1003.1-2001 (*note Standards conformance::) does not allow these | options; use `-c COUNT' or `-n COUNT' instead. `----
And from another part of the documentation: ,----[ (coreutils)Standards conformance ] | Newer versions of POSIX are occasionally incompatible with older | versions. For example, older versions of POSIX required the command | `sort +1' to sort based on the second and succeeding fields in each | input line, but starting with POSIX 1003.1-2001 the same command is | required to sort the file named `+1', and you must instead use the | command `sort -k 2' to get the field-based sort. | | The GNU utilities normally conform to the version of POSIX that is | standard for your system. To cause them to conform to a different | version of POSIX, define the `_POSIX2_VERSION' environment variable to | a value of the form YYYYMM specifying the year and month the standard | was adopted. Two values are currently supported for `_POSIX2_VERSION': | `199209' stands for POSIX 1003.2-1992, and `200112' stands for POSIX | 1003.1-2001. For example, if you are running older software that | assumes an older version of POSIX and uses `sort +1', `head -1', or | `tail +1', you can work around the compatibility problems by setting | `_POSIX2_VERSION=199209' in your environment. `---- _______________________________________________ Bug-coreutils mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils
