I read the man page, which indicated I should use % tail -4f /etc/passwd
and that works fine with tail (coreutils) 5.2.1, and every tail I've seen before. I'd say no bug. However, I recall a discussion here few weeks ago indicating that this use of options is obsolescent. Christian > Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2005 13:20:48 -0500 > From: Jeff Kinz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: tail "-f" option fails two ways in version 5.93 > Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > I may have found a bug in tail. > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] src]# ./tail -4 /etc/passwd #WORKS FINE > [EMAIL PROTECTED] src]# ./tail -f /etc/passwd # WORKS FINE > [EMAIL PROTECTED] src]# ./tail -4 -f /etc/passwd > ./tail: invalid option -- 4 > Try `./tail --help' for more information. > > Its possible that I'm missing something here but I am able to produce > a slightly different bug on version 5.2.1 of tail as well: > ################################################# > [EMAIL PROTECTED] root]# tail --version > tail (coreutils) 5.2.1 [...] > [EMAIL PROTECTED] root]# tail -4 -f /etc/passwd > tail: cannot open `-f' for reading: No such file or directory > ==> /etc/passwd <== > colin:x:503:503::/home/colin:/bin/bash [...] > The man page says nothing about this and the only thing the info page > says is that the "-4" type argument must be the first option. > > So - is this a bug? _______________________________________________ Bug-coreutils mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils
