tailf command

tailf.c

/*
 * tailf.c -- tail a log file and then follow it
 * Created: Tue Jan  9 15:49:21 1996 by [email protected]
 * Copyright 1996, 2003 Rickard E. Faith ([email protected])
 *
 * Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
 * copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
 * to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
 * the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
 * and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
 * Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
 *
 * The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
 * in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
 *
 * THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
 * IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
 * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL
 * THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR
 * OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE,
 * ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR
 * OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
 *
 * less -F and tail -f cause a disk access every five seconds.  This
 * program avoids this problem by waiting for the file size to change.
 * Hence, the file is not accessed, and the access time does not need to be
 * flushed back to disk.  This is sort of a "stealth" tail.
 */

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <malloc.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
//#include "nls.h"
#define _(s) s

static size_t filesize(const char *filename)
{
    struct stat sb;

    if (!stat(filename, &sb)) return sb.st_size;
    return 0;
}

static void tailf(const char *filename, int lines)
{
    char **buffer;
    int  head = 0;
    int  tail = 0;
    FILE *str;
    int  i;

    if (!(str = fopen(filename, "r"))) {
        fprintf(stderr, _("Cannot open \"%s\" for read\n"), filename);
        perror("");
        exit(1);
    }

    buffer = malloc(lines * sizeof(*buffer));
    for (i = 0; i < lines; i++) buffer[i] = malloc(BUFSIZ + 1);

    while (fgets(buffer[tail], BUFSIZ, str)) {
        if (++tail >= lines) {
            tail = 0;
            head = 1;
        }
    }

    if (head) {
        for (i = tail; i < lines; i++) fputs(buffer[i], stdout);
        for (i = 0; i < tail; i++)     fputs(buffer[i], stdout);
    } else {
        for (i = head; i < tail; i++)  fputs(buffer[i], stdout);
    }
    fflush(stdout);

    for (i = 0; i < lines; i++) free(buffer[i]);
    free(buffer);
}

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
    char       buffer[BUFSIZ];
    size_t     osize, nsize;
    FILE       *str;
    const char *filename;
    int        count;

    //setlocale(LC_ALL, "");
    //bindtextdomain(PACKAGE, LOCALEDIR);
    //textdomain(PACKAGE);

    if (argc != 2) {
        fprintf(stderr, _("Usage: tailf logfile\n"));
        exit(1);
    }

    filename = argv[1];

    tailf(filename, 10);

    for (osize = filesize(filename);;) {
        nsize = filesize(filename);
        if (nsize != osize) {
            if (!(str = fopen(filename, "r"))) {
                fprintf(stderr, _("Cannot open \"%s\" for read\n"), filename);
                perror(argv[0]);
                exit(1);
            }
            if (!fseek(str, osize, SEEK_SET))
                while ((count = fread(buffer, 1, sizeof(buffer), str)) > 0)
                    fwrite(buffer, 1, count, stdout);
            fflush(stdout);
            fclose(str);
            osize = nsize;
        }
        usleep(250000);     /* 250mS */
    }
    return 0;
}

gcc tailf.c -o tailf
then put it in your /usr/local/bin directory, now you can use a improved version of tail -f