Bug 229151

Summary: tail command doesn't support +n parameter.
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Serge Dubrouski <sergeyfd>
Component: coreutilsAssignee: Tim Waugh <twaugh>
Status: CLOSED DUPLICATE QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 6CC: meyering
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Hardware: i386   
OS: Linux   
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Last Closed: 2007-02-19 09:36:50 UTC Type: ---
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Description Serge Dubrouski 2007-02-18 19:38:57 UTC 
tail utility doesn't support +n parameters. For example:

on Fedora 5 and 6:

$ cat /etc/group | tail +3
tail: cannot open `+3' for reading: No such file or directory

On CentOS 4.3, Solaris, etc...

[sdubrov@home ~]$ tail /etc/group | tail +3
torrent:x:101:
hacluster:x:501:
haclient:x:502:

This is a quote from man page:

If the first character of N (the number of bytes or lines) is  a  ‘+’,
print  beginning with the Nth item from the start of each file, other-
wise, print the last N items in the file.  N  may  have  a  multiplier
suffix: b 512, k 1024, m 1024*1024.
Comment 1 Tim Waugh 2007-02-19 09:36:50 UTC 
That 'N' comes from this:

  -n, --lines=N

so you need:  tail -n +5
or: tail --lines=+5


*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 173431 ***