bug#8231: Bug in the linux command: tail

[Paul Eggert]

On 03/11/2011 03:14 PM, Alan Curry wrote:
> tail -N of multiple files used to work with GNU tail, before someone
> broke it

I checked in that change, and it was to make "tail" compatible with
both older BSD practice and with POSIX 1002.1-2001.  Any
further changes in this area should retain compatibility with older
BSD and with POSIX.  It's not as easy as it looks, I'm afraid.

A simple workaround (much simpler than trying to modify "tail" :-)
is to use "tail -n10 A B" instead of "tail -10 A B".