README.md

tailx

A utility to tail multiple files

Decription

tailx only purpose is to tail multiple files and append the filename at the beginning of each line. I created this utility to be used in kubernetes where I want to tail multiple files to the stdout.

Usage

tailx file1.txt file2.txt

Sample output

file1.txt: content in file1.txt
file2.txt: content in file2.txt

Alternative

1. Just use tail as follows

   tail -F file1.txt file2.txt

   This will output as follows:

   ==> file1.txt <==
   content in file1.txt
   
   ==> file2.txt <==
   content in file2.txt
   

2. Use tail with awk (see this post)

   tail -F file1.txt file2.txt | awk '/^==> / {a=substr($0, 5, length-8); next} {print a": "$0}'

   This will output as follows:

   file1.txt: content in file1.txt
   file1.txt:
   file2.txt: content in file2.txt
   file2.txt:
   

   NOTE: The empty lines are part of the section separator, not the actual content of the files.