"tail" command does not work as advertised

[Chris Sutcliffe]

> The "tail +4" commands does not work as advertised.  When given such command
> (advertised in man command), it complains it can't open the file.  With the
> command "tail +5 -", it produces the desired output with some junk on
> standard output.

As per the tail manpage:

       -n, --lines=N
              output the last N lines, instead of the last 10; or use
+N to output lines starting with the Nth

Note that the +N notation is specific to --lines=, not the '-n'
shorthand.  The proper syntax for this example:

> $ ps -a | tail +5 -

Should be 'ps -a | tail --lines=+5 -' assuming you want the output
only starting from the fifth line.

Chris

-- 
Chris Sutcliffe
http://emergedesktop.org
http://www.google.com/profiles/ir0nh34d

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