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Is there a command/program for OS X that allows me to hook to a file and display its changes in realtime without re-opening it, much like "top" monitors system processes in realtime ?

Thank you

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3 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

You can use tail -f to monitor single log file

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It doesn't seem to display changes as the file updates – Mark F Feb 6 '11 at 18:38
It does, at least on FreeBSD and linuxes. Should work on Mac OS X too. – gelraen Feb 6 '11 at 18:41
@Mark how do you modify the file during checking? – ulidtko Feb 6 '11 at 18:48
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the file is in a Dropbox and is updated perhaps a bit differently? – Mark F Feb 6 '11 at 18:48
It does work on OS X. On my systems anyway. – SvenW Feb 6 '11 at 18:50
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up vote 1 down vote

Another alternative may be doing less the-interesting-file and hitting Shift+F.

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Or less +F logfile – Dennis Williamson Feb 6 '11 at 19:51
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up vote 1 down vote

If you are doing this on file sync'd by dropbox the chances are it is creating a new file with a different inode so the tail -f command and the less +F command do not work since they are still referencing the old file handle they opened initially.

I suggest trying 

watch "tail /path/to/filename"

It feels hackish but at least every X seconds it will re run tail on the filename giving you the updated output regardless of whether or not the inodes change on the file.

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