This must've been done before: I want to keep a log file open in terminal so I can monitor updates to it as they occur. My searches are coming up with everything but this situation... I must be missing some terminology or something key, because people do this all the time inside of other programs (NetBeans, or rails server, for example).
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108
Try with:
tail -f your.log
where -f stands for follow.
cYrus
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As you may need syntax highlight, `multitail` is handy i.e. **multitail -f your.log** ref. http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/8419/17671 – Nam G VU Sep 22 '16 at 04:45
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Or even better is `grc` i.e. **grc tail -f your.log** ref. http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/21962/17671 – Nam G VU Sep 22 '16 at 04:48
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Another way:
watch tail -n20 your.log
OK, kind of a silly use of watch - but you might find the watch command useful for other things.
Robin Green
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5The `watch` option is better for files that are going to be renamed/removed and recreated (either by normal operation or by something like logrotate) during the time you are watching, otherwise `tail -f` is more efficient. – David Spillett May 20 '11 at 20:07
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An alternative to @cYrus's answer is:
less +F file.log
The benefit is that less can also truncate long lines for you with the -S flag, preventing them from wrapping around the terminal screen while allowing you to scroll left/right. Instead of piping tail -f file.log through cut or something similar, you can just:
less -S +F file.log
Severyn Kozak
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