Re: tailf, really needed?

["Ángel González" <ingenit@zoho.com>]

On 13/03/15 14:02, Ruediger Meier wrote:
> BTW I think there could be a minor improvement for coreutils tail for
> the cases "file is empty" or "-n 0". Maybe we could skip opening the
> file one time at the beginning. So that "tail -n0 -f logfile" would
> really never access the file unless it grows.
>
> cu,
> Rudi

I suspect that might break filesystems lying about the file size, such 
as proc or some compressed fs. There may also be issues with some 
network fs.

A tail <file> with <file> of len 0, would usually be empty. However, it 
would be a problem not to provide an output for tail /proc/$$/status



PS: tail -f already acts a bit funny in that case, as it tails the end 
of the file, then thinks it has been truncated and shows it in full.