Hi there,
I use tail 5.3.0 in Windows 7. It works fine unless I try to follow a file.
Here is my --version output:
tail (GNU coreutils) 5.3.0
Written by Paul Rubin, David MacKenzie, Ian Lance Taylor, and Jim Meyering.
Copyright (C) 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
The following works as expected with no error messages.
tail \\ssb-batman\logs\batman\build.log
However, if I try to follow, it gives output as follows.
C:\>tail -f \\ssb-batman\logs\batman\build.log
[INFO] Unpacking C:\p4ws\depot_cfg\ssb\trunk\postilion\ssb\postgen\target\postgen-izpack.zip to
C:\p4ws\depot_cfg\ssb\trunk\postilion\ssb_installer\target\staging
with includes null and excludes:null
[INFO] Unpacking C:\p4ws\depot_cfg\ssb\trunk\postilion\ssb\scheduleinjector\target\scheduleinjector-izpack.zip to
C:\p4ws\depot_cfg\ssb\trunk\postilion\ssb_installer\target\staging
with includes null and excludes:null
[INFO] Unpacking C:\p4ws\depot_cfg\ssb\trunk\postilion\ssb\services\target\services-izpack.zip to
C:\p4ws\depot_cfg\ssb\trunk\postilion\ssb_installer\target\staging
with includes null and excludes:null
tail: \\ssb-batman\logs\batman\build.log: Bad file descriptor
Why is tail suddenly claiming that the file descriptor is bad, when clearly it works just fine?
So I tried some different things to see if I could get it to work.
I tried
tail --follow=\\ssb-batman\logs\batman\build.log
but that just gives an even stranger error:
tail: invalid argument `\\\\ssb-batman\\logs\\batman\\build.log' for `--follow'
Try `tail --help' for more information.
I thought at first that maybe tail does not like the UNC path, but that is not the case - it does exactly the same when I use a local file.
If I add --retry to the mix, I get the following very interesting reaction: It prints out the last few lines, throws out the same error as before, then prints out the entire file! This is what it looks like:
C:\>tail -f "\\ssb-batman\logs\batman\build.log" --retry
tail: warning: --retry is useful only when following by name
[INFO] CfgSystemInfoExt ...................................... SUCCESS [4.328s]
[INFO] SSB Installer ......................................... SUCCESS [1:28.422s]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 22 minutes 54 seconds
[INFO] Finished at: Fri Nov 26 10:11:17 GMT+02:00 2010
[INFO] Final Memory: 66M/1016M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
tail: \\ssb-batman\logs\batman\build.log: Bad file descriptor
tail: `\\ssb-batman\logs\batman\build.log' has become accessible
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO] Reactor build order:
[INFO] Postilion Parent POM
<snip snip...>
In the interests of brevity I cut out the rest of my 250KB log file :-)
Regards,
Johan
--
Johan Pretorius
Cell: 0829268327