option like TAIL to keep track of WHOLE file

Question

tail -f will update the file once new data is inserted , but if the whole file is being rewritten it will give an error .

is there any other option to keep reloading the whole file ?

Thank you

Answer 1

man tail gives :

tail -F or tail --follow=name --retry to keep tail watching file even if all the file is rewritten.

Answer 2

Have a look at multitail. The following output was produced through the command sudo multitail --follow-all -i /vor/log/syslog. It shows the end of one file, a notice that the file got truncated and the beginning of the new syslog entry:

Nov  8 09:06:36 rfc1178 anacron[22633]: Updated timestamp for job `cron.daily'11-08
tail: �~@~^/var/log/syslog�~@~\ wurde ersetzt;  folge Ende der neuen Datei
----------- file got truncated /var/log/syslog 2012/11/08 09:08:02-----------
Nov  8 09:08:02 rfc1178 rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" …