Re: tail command

[Paul Eggert]

address@hidden writes:

> tail: `-5' option is obsolete; use `-n 5' since this will be removed in the 
> future

This message isn't in coreutils tail.  Perhaps you're running a
modified distribution?  If so, you might need to write to the distro
maintainer instead.

> why is this option being removed?

POSIX 1003.1-2001 doesn't allow it, even as an extension.  From the
POSIX point of view that usage was originally marked obsolescent in
POSIX 1003.2-1992, and I assume they thought that was enough warning.

You can get the old behavior by setting _POSIX2_VERSION=199209 in your
environment.  For more on this subject, please search
<http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-coreutils/> for
"_POSIX2_VERSION".