How to tail -f the latest log file with a given pattern

linux logging zsh tail
Axiverse picture Axiverse · Aug 5, 2010 · Viewed 13.4k times · Source

I work with some log system which creates a log file every hour, like follows:

SoftwareLog.2010-08-01-08
SoftwareLog.2010-08-01-09
SoftwareLog.2010-08-01-10

I'm trying to tail to follow the latest log file giving a pattern (e.g. SoftwareLog*) and I realize there's:

tail -F (tail --follow=name --retry)

but that only follow one specific name - and these have different names by date and hour. I tried something like:

tail --follow=name --retry SoftwareLog*(.om[1])

but the wildcard statement is resoved before it gets passed to tail and doesn't re-execute everytime tail retries.

Any suggestions?

Answer

devup picture devup · Jan 12, 2011

I believe the simplest solution is as follows:

tail -f `ls -tr | tail -n 1`

Now, if your directory contains other log files like "SystemLog" and you only want the latest "SoftwareLog" file, then you would simply include a grep as follows:

tail -f `ls -tr | grep SoftwareLog | tail -n 1`

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