Re: tail --retry not re-attempting to open file (original) (raw)

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Hi Padraig,

On 04/03/2013 01:02 PM, Pádraig Brady wrote:

Yes I agree that this is a regression associated with the inotify support. I take tail --follow=descriptor --retry to mean, Wait for the file to appear initially and follow even if renamed or unlinked.

The problem is that tail_forever_inotify() returns false when the initial open in tail_file() failed. This makes tail exit immediately. Without intense reading of the source, I guess it's not easy to use inotify in such a case. Therefore, falling back to polling seems to be quite okay. The attached patch implement this in a one-liner:

@ -2189,7 +2192,8 @@ main (int argc, char **argv) is recreated, then we don't recheck any new file when follow_mode == Follow_name */ if (!disable_inotify && (tailable_stdin (F, n_files)

•                           || any_remote_file (F, n_files)))

•                           || any_remote_file (F, n_files)

•                           || !ok))
     disable_inotify = true;
  
   if (!disable_inotify)

> Furthermore, I find this warning irritating > "warning: --retry is useful mainly when following by name"

I agree. It's not imparting much info, about why that's supported. What we should do is print what tail will do in this case. I propose we do:

if (retry) if (!followmode) warn ("--retry ignored"); else if (followmode == DESC) warn ("--retry only effective for the initial open");

I'd go even one step further, and also remove the latter warning. It fits better into the texinfo documentation. The attached patch includes that, too.

Finally, the patch comes with a new test, NEWS etc.

WDYT?

Have a nice day, Berny

tail-f-retry.patch
Description: Text Data

• tail --retry not re-attempting to open file, Noel Morrison, 2013/04/02
  • Re: tail --retry not re-attempting to open file, Bernhard Voelker, 2013/04/02
    * Re: tail --retry not re-attempting to open file, Bernhard Voelker, 2013/04/03
    * Re: tail --retry not re-attempting to open file, Pádraig Brady, 2013/04/03
    * Re: tail --retry not re-attempting to open file,Bernhard Voelker <=
    * Re: tail --retry not re-attempting to open file, Pádraig Brady, 2013/04/03
    * Re: tail --retry not re-attempting to open file, Bernhard Voelker, 2013/04/17
    * Re: tail --retry not re-attempting to open file, Pádraig Brady, 2013/04/17
    * Re: tail --retry not re-attempting to open file, Pádraig Brady, 2013/04/18
    * Re: tail --retry not re-attempting to open file, Bernhard Voelker, 2013/04/18
    * Re: tail --retry not re-attempting to open file, Bernhard Voelker, 2013/04/20
    * Re: tail --retry not re-attempting to open file, Pádraig Brady, 2013/04/20
    * Re: tail --retry not re-attempting to open file, Bernhard Voelker, 2013/04/21

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