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From: std-unix@ut-sally.UUCP (Moderator, John Quarterman)
Newsgroups: mod.std.unix
Subject: Re: tail in 1003.2 Commands
Message-ID: <6882@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 17-Jan-87 19:20:19 EST
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.6882
Posted: Sat Jan 17 19:20:19 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Jan-87 00:49:30 EST
References: <6710@ut-sally.UUCP> <6783@ut-sally.UUCP>
Organization: IEEE P1003 Portable Operating System for Computer Environments Committee
Lines: 28
Approved: jsq@sally.utexas.edu
Summary: tail(1) reconsidered

From: colonel@sunybcs.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman)
Date: 12 Jan 87 15:18:10 GMT
Organization: Jack of Clubs Precision Instruments

> From: hoptoad!gnu@lll-crg.arpa (John Gilmore)
> Date: Sat, 27 Dec 86 02:57:15 PST
> 
> ... Tail should be in the mandatory set of commands.

I know that tail is in BSD.  Is it a Berkeley product?  There's one thing
about it I don't like.  When you type "tail +10c" you get all characters
starting with the tenth.

Now, that's un-Unixican.  Characters start at 0, and perhaps blocks and
lines should too.  As it is, if I want a shell command or expression
in the argument, I usually have to add 1 to it to make it work.

I'd like to see a program that does what tail does, except that if
you say "tail +n" it skips the first n units.  You could call it
something else--maybe "trail."  And how about a "head" with the same
syntax as tail/trail?  ("head xx file; tail xx file" = "cat file")
-- 
Col. G. L. Sicherman
UU: ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel
CS: colonel@buffalo-cs
BI: colonel@sunybcs, csdsiche@ubvms

Volume-Number: Volume 9, Number 20