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Follow files across rotation and truncation - #1
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This was referenced Oct 21, 2026
This was referenced Oct 22, 2026
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Before:
relay-logsprinted a file once and exited, so watching a live log meant falling back totail -f.After:
relay-logs -f app.logprints the last 10 lines and then every line appended to the file, colored by level.-nsets how many lines to start with, and several files can be followed at once with their lines interleaved as they arrive.The follower only prints complete lines, so a line that is still being written is never split. It starts over when a file is truncated, reads the new file from its first line after log rotation, and waits for a file that does not exist yet.
How:
followFilepolls the file's size and identity (device, inode, birth time) and reads only the new byte range through the existingLineSplitter.readLastLinesreads backwards in 64 KB blocks to find the starting point.mergeSourcesraces the sources' iterators so one quiet or failing file does not hold up the others. Tests cover tail, partial lines, truncation, rotation, late files, and merging.