"tail -f file" with "mv file file2" does not show changes to file2
| Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| coreutils (Ubuntu) |
Confirmed
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned | ||
Bug Description
The manual page of tail states the following:
With --follow (-f), tail defaults to following the file descriptor,
which means that even if a tail'ed file is renamed, tail will continue
to track its end.
However, the following command sequence does not behave like that:
touch file
tail -f file &
mv file file2
echo "text" >> file2
In this case, tail does not show any output. However, tail shows the "text" properly when run on a Solaris server. This indicates that tail does behave like its manual page states in some versions.
System version: Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS
touch version: touch (GNU coreutils) 8.13
tail version: tail (GNU coreutils) 8.13
mv version: mv (GNU coreutils) 8.13
bash version: GNU bash, version 4.2.24(1)-release (x86_64-
On the Solaris server that behaves correctly, each are '(GNU coreutils) 6.7' except bash which is 'GNU bash, version 3.2.25(1)-release (sparc-
| Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton) wrote | #1 |
| tags: | added: bot-comment |
| affects: | ubuntu → coreutils (Ubuntu) |
| Andrew McCarthy (andrewmccarthy) wrote | #2 |
| Changed in coreutils (Ubuntu): | |
| status: | New → Confirmed |
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