Why tail -f is not working for a proc file?

Question

I have a proc file which is updated by a driver. In user space I am reading using tail. It is working fine, But when i give -f option for tail, It is not working. This means it is reading file contents which are already there but it is not reading new contents that added later.Can somebody explain why?

http://superuser.com/a/155214/28322 ? – Basilevs Dec 10 '13 at 05:15 — Basilevs, Dec 10 '13 at 05:15

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 10 '13 at 05:19

3

According to discussion the Linux Kernel Mailing List in 2001, proc was not built with support for the underlying code calls used by tail -f. I have not found any evidence that such support was added in the last 12 years.

answered Dec 10 '13 at 05:19

Moshe Katz

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Why tail -f is not working for a proc file?

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