.hd last "print last n lines of a file" 01/13/83
last [-t ] [ -c] [-v] [-l<#>] [-n | -n<#> | {<pathname>}]
.ds
This program allows the user to print the last (or first) "n" lines
of a file, or of standard input.  In addition, it does a high speed
count of the number of lines in the file and can be used simply
to size the file.  A combination of text printing and counting may be
chosen.
.sp
.in +3
"-t" -- prints the lines of text requested (last or first "n" lines).
.sp
"-c" -- prints the number of lines in the file followed by a blank line.
.sp
"-v" -- print the pathname of the file.
The pathname is printed after the count (if the count is requested)
and is followed by a blank line.
.sp
"-l<#>" -- <#> is any number between -32767 and +32767. If the number is
positive, then the last <#> lines are printed as text. Otherwise
(<#> is negative), the first abs(<#>) lines are printed as the text.
Therefore, the top 10 lines could be printed with "-l-10".
.sp
"-n or -n<#>" -- standard format to input a list of filenames
to be used as arguments.
.in -3
.sp
All output, except error messages, goes to STDOUT.
Default options are: last -l20 -t
.es
=userlist=> last
last -t -l50 [lf -c] | sort | uniq >ends
echo [last -c [file]]" lines in "[file]
.fl
If input is from STDIN and is from the terminal then the input
is copied into a file opened with 'mktemp' before positioning
is done (since the terminal cannot be "positioned").
.me
"<name>: Cannot open" for files that cannot be opened.
.br
"Usage: last ..." for incorrect argument usage.
.bu
Very peculiar behavior will occur if 'last' is used on something other
than text (as in binary image files).  It also
will not work correctly on files which do not have the character
parity bits set on (Prime and SWT standard).
.sp
Locally supported.
.sa
tail (1), tc (1), slice (1)