Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!amdahl!pyramid!prls!mips!dce
From: dce@mips.COM (David Elliott)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re:  tail -f
Message-ID: <9850@dunkshot.mips.COM>
Date: 13 Dec 88 18:03:09 GMT
References: <17785@adm.BRL.MIL>
Reply-To: dce@mips.COM (David Elliott)
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 13

No, you can't use select, but tail can be made a little smarter.

In Tektronix's UTek, tail -f has a "back-off" for the timing of the
loop.  After 10 failed reads, the sleep time is increased by some
amount (with some upper limit, of course).  Tim Knox, who was at Intel
last I saw, might remember the details, as he was the person that
wrote the code.

In any event, it made a tail -f that was running for no reason not
take up so much time.

-- 
David Elliott		dce@mips.com  or  {ames,prls,pyramid,decwrl}!mips!dce
"Did you see his eyes?  Did you see his crazy eyes?" -- Iggy (who else?)