The File::Tail module is designed for reading files which are continously appended to (the name comes from the tail -f directive). Usualy such files are logfiles of some description. The module tries hard not to busy wait on the file, dynamicaly calcultaing how long it should wait before it pays to try reading the file again. The module should handle normal log truncations ("close; move; open" or "cat /dev/null >file") transparently, without losing any input. Currently this package requires Time::HiRes, because it often needs to sleep for less than one second. (I don't beleive one should busy wait on a file just because it gets more than one line/second). The file logwatch is a simple example of use. Try it with ./logwatch /var/log/syslog 1 if you want to see how File::Tail works. This version now returns a tied filehandle, but it can also be used as a normal object. A feature added in 0.81 is tail -n functionality: you can demand to read the last n lines, reading from the current end of file, or reading from the start of file. Select was added in version 0.90. It allows you to simoultaneously read from several File::Tail objects at the same time, while also reading from pipes. This is a new implementation, so if you notice any bugs, please let me know. ************************************************************************* Version 0.90 had a bug in "select" which caused it to sometimes overlook input waiting on ordinary files until there was input on tailed files. ************************************************************************* NOTE: Select functionality is currently experimental. Consider this a public beta. If you notice any new problems, let me know. I will also entertain suggestions for changes in the select interface - but only until I release the next version. To build this module, enter perl Makefile.PL make make test make install If you have any problems, contact me at matija.grabnar@arnes.si Copyright (c) 1997,1998,1999 Matija Grabnar. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.