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Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:37:32 -0500
From: Paul McFerrin <pmcferrin AT columbus DOT rr DOT com>
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To: Cygwin <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
Subject: "tail" command does not work as advertised
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The "tail +4" commands does not work as advertised.  When given such 
command (advertised in man command), it complains it can't open the 
file.  With the command "tail +5 -", it produces the desired output with 
some junk on standard output.

See examples:

$ ps -a | tail +5 -
tail: cannot open `+5' for reading: No such file or directory
==> standard input <==
      PID    PPID    PGID     WINPID  TTY  UID    STIME COMMAND
     5644       1    5644       5644    ?   18 20:24:45 /usr/bin/cygrunsrv
     4928    5644    4928       4896    ?   18 20:24:45 /usr/sbin/cron
I    5088       1    5088       5356  con 1003 21:02:39 /lbin/ksh
     5808       1    5808       4996  con 1003 21:02:53 /usr/bin/rxvt
     6036    5808    6036       5580    0 1003 21:02:53 /usr/bin/ksh
     5668    6036    6036       5668    0 1003 21:32:28 /usr/bin/ksh
I    5060    6036    6036       4544    0 1003 21:32:28 /usr/bin/tail
     3832    5668    6036       2328    0 1003 21:32:28 /usr/bin/ps
/home/Paul.$ ps -a | tail +3
tail: cannot open `+3' for reading: No such file or directory

All examples are supposed to produced output from the beginning of the file.

- Paul


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