Make VIM reload file as soon as it changes on disk [duplicate]

Question

I don't want to have to keep reloaded a log file manually, I want to automatically see my logs as they come in.

Apparently, VIM has this feature built in, something called autoread, but I can't get it to work in Ubuntu

I can run

sudo vi ~/.vimrc

to edit vim's config file like so:

 set number
 set autoread

The number argument works perfectly. autoread doesn't work at all.

Any ideas or hacks? I want VIM to automatically scroll the bottom of the file when a file it's viewing is updated as well.

Answer 1

The tail command does exactly what I want...does it a little better actually:

tail /var/logs/foo.log

That will automatically print of foo.log to the console, and, when foo.log is updated, this will be reflected in the console.

Answer 2

I found that autoread works, but the refresh only happens when I bring the window into focus (for my setup, moving the mouse out of the window, then back into it).