This is a side affect of the change to the newer POSIX standard. For instance,
to use the old standard:
503:$ _POSIX2_VERSION=199209
504:$ export _POSIX2_VERSION
505:$ ps -a | tail +5
2864 1 2864 2864 con 718399 19:26:01 /usr/bin/rxvt
7612 2864 7612 2328 1 718399 19:26:01 /usr/bin/bash
7052 7612 7052 3740 1 718399 19:31:39 /usr/bin/ps
1468 7612 7052 3640 1 718399 19:31:39 /usr/bin/tail
http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/faq/coreutils-faq.html#Old-tail-plus-N-syntax-now-fails
Todd
On Tue, Mar 02, 2010 at 08:30:39PM -0700, Eric Blake wrote:
> According to Chris Sutcliffe on 3/2/2010 8:01 PM:
> >> The "tail +4" commands does not work as advertised. When given such
> >> command
> >> (advertised in man command), it complains it can't open the file. With the
> >> command "tail +5 -", it produces the desired output with some junk on
> >> standard output.
> >
> > As per the tail manpage:
> >
> > -n, --lines=N
> > output the last N lines, instead of the last 10; or use
> > +N to output lines starting with the Nth
> >
> > Note that the +N notation is specific to --lines=, not the '-n'
> > shorthand.
>
> Wrong - the +N notation also works with -n:
>
> ps -a | tail -n +5
>
> --
> Eric Blake ebl...@redhat.com +1-801-349-2682
> Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org
>
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