Tailing App Server Logs
If you are a Unix geek you probably know all about this, but since I am a Windows guy, I find this stuff valuable. My favorite Unix command the “tail” comman which allows you to see the last few lines of a text file. This may not seem very useful at first, but if you turn on a particular switch (“-f” for “follow”) it will tail the last portion of a file even it is updated. This is particularly useful for watching log files (such as the app server log or an error log). The full command might look like this:
C:appservLOGS>tail -f -10 appsrv_0614.log
This command will tail the last 10 lines of the specified log file – allowing you to view it dynamically as it is updated. This is useful when you have debugging turned up – this way you can see what is going on with the application in real time.
