From: Curt Sampson <cjs@...>
Date: 2002-08-01T22:01:09+09:00
Subject: Re: A very basic tail -f implementation

On Thu, 1 Aug 2002, James F.Hranicky wrote:

> On Thu, 1 Aug 2002 21:23:09 +0900
> "Berger, Daniel" <djberge@qwest.com> wrote:
>
> > > 	- Check for rotation by checking for changes in the inode number
> ...
> That's true, you just have to stat the actual filename everytime and
> check against the current filehandle.

Right. You also ought to check the device number, in case the file
is somewhow moved to another device and ends up with the same inode
number.  At least, that's what I did when I added the '-F' option
to tail(1) in NetBSD. Maybe I'm just anal-retentive. :-)

Also, you might want to check to see if the file has been shortened,
in case the writer truncates it and starts writing again at the
beginning.

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson  <cjs@cynic.net>   +81 90 7737 2974   http://www.netbsd.org
    Don't you know, in this new Dark Age, we're all light.  --XTC