Re: tailf, really needed?

[Peter Cordes <peter@cordes.ca>]

On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 11:37:35AM +0000, Pádraig Brady wrote:
> On 13/03/15 09:00, Ruediger Meier wrote:
> > 
> > Last but not least, is anybody using tailf at all? Google does not find 
> > much about people who are using this.
>
> A deprecation warning makes sense to me.

 I haven't checked the semantics carefully, but could we just turn
tailf into a wrapper for tail -f, to avoid maintaining code that's
gotten old and crufty?  And if there aren't corner cases where someone
might still want the old tailf, until it's finally removed from
util-linux.


something like:

#!/bin/sh
if [ "$(tty <&2)" != "not a tty" ];then
    echo "warning: tailf is deprecated, and just a wrapper for tail -f" >&2
fi
exec tail -f "$@"

Or is this just asking for gratuitous breakage and confusion beyond
what any existing users will get when they upgrade to a util-linux
where it's finally dropped after a few years of deprecation?

-- 
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ;  e-mail: X(peter@cor , des.ca)

"The gods confound the man who first found out how to distinguish the hours!
 Confound him, too, who in this place set up a sundial, to cut and hack
 my day so wretchedly into small pieces!" -- Plautus, 200 BC