Earthworm
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Use stdout as argument of next command
I want to tail -f a log file. The application dynamicall names its log files using the date, so each time the app is run the log file looks something like "myapp-2008-01-18-18-29-17
$ ls -trC1 myapp*.log | tail -1
That displays to stdout the file I am interested in. I cannot figure out if it is possible to somehow pipe that or redirect it somehow as the ARGUMENT of another tail -f command. This does NOT work because the last tail command is just tailing stdin:
$ ls -trC1 myapp*.log | tail -1 | tail -f
Any ideas? I'm open to other suggestions, but I'd like to keep it simple and do it in one line instead of a script...
$ ls -trC1 myapp*.log | tail -1
That displays to stdout the file I am interested in. I cannot figure out if it is possible to somehow pipe that or redirect it somehow as the ARGUMENT of another tail -f command. This does NOT work because the last tail command is just tailing stdin:
$ ls -trC1 myapp*.log | tail -1 | tail -f
Any ideas? I'm open to other suggestions, but I'd like to keep it simple and do it in one line instead of a script...
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ASKER
Thanks, I knew it would be easy!
tail -f `ls -t mpapp*.log | head -1`