Re: Patch to fix data loss with `tail -F' (bug 6612)

[Jos Backus]

On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 10:37:31AM +0200, Andreas Schwab wrote:
> Jos Backus <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > The `date' output shows up in the tail output. Also, this change only stops
> > reading from the old file once the new file has some content. At that time 
> > the
> > old file is read until EOF and closed before starting on the new file.
> 
> What if the old file keeps growing?

"Too bad." With proper log rotation this never happens anyway.

Perhaps this solution isn't perfect, but as it stands today `tail -F' is
broken for tailing logfiles in that it _will_ lose data when the file is
rotated. My test setup proves this. So something _has_ to be done.

-- 
Jos Backus
jos at catnook.com