nxadm/tail

[Revamped] Go package for reading from continuously updated files (tail -f)

Go

411

173 commits

updated Jul 24, 2024

See the code

README

Go Reference ci FreeBSD

tail functionality in Go

nxadm/tail provides a Go library that emulates the features of the BSD tail program. The library comes with full support for truncation/move detection as it is designed to work with log rotation tools. The library works on all operating systems supported by Go, including POSIX systems like Linux, *BSD, MacOS, and MS Windows. Go 1.12 is the oldest compiler release supported.

A simple example:

// Create a tail
t, err := tail.TailFile(
	"/var/log/nginx.log", tail.Config{Follow: true, ReOpen: true})
if err != nil {
    panic(err)
}

// Print the text of each received line
for line := range t.Lines {
    fmt.Println(line.Text)
}

See API documentation.

Installing

go get github.com/nxadm/tail/...

History

This project is an active, drop-in replacement for the abandoned Go tail library at hpcloud. Next to addressing open issues/PRs of the original project, nxadm/tail continues the development by keeping up to date with the Go toolchain (e.g. go modules) and dependencies, completing the documentation, adding features and fixing bugs.

Examples

Examples, e.g. used to debug an issue, are kept in the examples directory.

go
golang
logging
monitoring
tail
trigger
watcher

Significant stargazers

Sean Chittenden

115 followers · starred Sep 2026

Wish

830 followers · starred Jun 2025

Rahuλ Dé

262 followers · starred Aug 2025

matt

24 followers · starred Jun 2020

nxadm/tail

[Revamped] Go package for reading from continuously updated files (tail -f)

Go

411

173 commits

updated Jul 24, 2024

See the code

README

Go Reference ci FreeBSD

tail functionality in Go

nxadm/tail provides a Go library that emulates the features of the BSD tail program. The library comes with full support for truncation/move detection as it is designed to work with log rotation tools. The library works on all operating systems supported by Go, including POSIX systems like Linux, *BSD, MacOS, and MS Windows. Go 1.12 is the oldest compiler release supported.

A simple example:

// Create a tail
t, err := tail.TailFile(
	"/var/log/nginx.log", tail.Config{Follow: true, ReOpen: true})
if err != nil {
    panic(err)
}

// Print the text of each received line
for line := range t.Lines {
    fmt.Println(line.Text)
}

See API documentation.

Installing

go get github.com/nxadm/tail/...

History

This project is an active, drop-in replacement for the abandoned Go tail library at hpcloud. Next to addressing open issues/PRs of the original project, nxadm/tail continues the development by keeping up to date with the Go toolchain (e.g. go modules) and dependencies, completing the documentation, adding features and fixing bugs.

Examples

Examples, e.g. used to debug an issue, are kept in the examples directory.

go
golang
logging
monitoring
tail
trigger
watcher

Significant stargazers

Sean Chittenden

115 followers · starred Sep 2026

Wish

830 followers · starred Jun 2025

Rahuλ Dé

262 followers · starred Aug 2025

matt

24 followers · starred Jun 2020