tail +N vs. tail -n N

[Greg Jednaszewski]

Hi,

When using the +N option with tail, I get the following message:

address@hidden greg]$ tail +5 foo.txt
tail: `+5' option is obsolete; use `-n 5' since this will be removed in 
the future

First of all, it suggests using the "-n" option instead of the +N 
option, which is not an equivalent operation.

For example, "tail +5" gives you the end of the file, starting at line 
5.   On the other hand, "tail -n 5" gives you the last 5 lines of the file.

Second, there does not seem to be an equivalent option for tail +N. 
(end of file, starting at line N) This is very important for shell 
archives.  See this for more information:

http://linux.org.mt/article/selfextract

I understand that +N does not fit GNU standards for command-line 
arguments, but please do not remove this functionality from tail. 
Instead, I suggest adding another command line option that implements 
this functionality.

Thanks,
Greg Jednaszewski

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