How to stop "tail -f" within a running script?

Question

How can you stop a tail -f command after seeing a specific string/word?

I'm trying to follow an expanding log and stop the tail after finding a specific word. Is there any kill command for that? I'm just starting with UNIX.

Surely, tail -f is a command that you ran from the command line? So then doing a Ctrl C — Kevdog777, Jun 24 '16 at 14:34
actually no, ill be using it inside a script. I wanted to follow a log that is expanding then i want to stop the tail command if it see a specific string. — jaybee, Jun 24 '16 at 14:52

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 24 '16 at 14:57

0

you can enable the grep line buffering if you want to tail file with ongoing writing:

tail -f your_file | grep --line-buffered your_pattern

else if the file is static you can grep your file the pattern you are looking for.

edited Jun 24 '16 at 14:57

MelBurslan

6,966

answered Jun 24 '16 at 14:13

igiannak

750

1

tail -f log.txt | grep --line-buffered "error" like this? – jaybee Jun 24 '16 at 14:22

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 24 '16 at 14:33

0

pgrep -f 'tail -f your_filename'|xargs kill

answered Jun 24 '16 at 14:33

Gregg Leventhal

7,590

How to stop "tail -f" within a running script?

2 Answers2