What if you need to look at the last 11 lines of the file? The command
tail -
n shows the final n lines.
The command tail +
n discards the first n-1
lines, giving you line n and everything that follows
it.
You can also tell tail to count the number
of characters or the number of 512-byte blocks. To do so, use the
-c
option (count characters) or the
-b option (count blocks). If you want to state explicitly
that you're interested in lines, give the -l
option.
Your tail
probably has a -r option that shows the file in reverse order,
starting from the last line.
Many versions of Unix limit the maximum number of lines that tail, especially tail -r, can display.
— ML