How to make newer "tail" behave like older "tail"
 

Hi guys

How can I make my "tail" binary in a FC6 install, which takes this parameter

tail -n +486

behave like an older version of tail, i. e. where I can just specify

tail +486

to get the same result from the "newer" tail on FC6 as the old syntax would have elicited??

Thanks...

I thought the old style was like this, "tail -486", not using a + character. I believe this still works with the GNU tools version of tail.

Actually, the old-style option was +N to print out lines from N-th to the end. The new-style option does not permit it anymore, even if -N can still be used. However you can force tail to conform to the old POSIX standard, by setting the following environment variable
I don't know how this affects other commands, anyway. You can try to look for more detailed informations on the coreutils site.

THANKS!!!!!

That last one was the key - much obliged!

:)

You're welcome! :) To be sure, you can avoid problems with other commands by creating an alias for tail
in this way the variable _POSIX2_VERSION will be set only for the execution of tail.