Re: bug in tail?

[Jim Meyering]

Richard Mawson <address@hidden> wrote:
> tail --follow=name -f <file>
>
> doesn't seem to follow the file if the inode changes, but
>
> tail -f <file> --follow=name
>
> does... a source of some confusion for me for a while until I realised the
> difference between the ones that worked and the ones that didn't... I guess
> this may have been found already - anyway you know its there for sure now...

Thanks for the report, but that doesn't seem like a bug to me.
The documentation says that -f is the same as --follow=descriptor:

  -f, --follow[={name|descriptor}]
                           output appended data as the file grows;
                           -f, --follow, and --follow=descriptor are
                           equivalent

so the one specified last takes precedence.