How can I get the source code for the linux utility tail?

Question

this command is really very useful but where I can get the source code to see what is going on inside .

thanks .

Answer 1

The tail utility is part of the coreutils on linux.

• Source tarball: ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-7.4.tar.gz
• Source file: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/coreutils.git/tree/src/tail.c (original http link)

I've always found FreeBSD to have far clearer source code than the gnu utilities. So here's tail.c in the FreeBSD project:

• http://svnweb.freebsd.org/csrg/usr.bin/tail/tail.c?view=markup