How to tail -f the latest log file with a given pattern

Question

I work with some log system which creates a log file every hour, like follows:

SoftwareLog.2010-08-01-08
SoftwareLog.2010-08-01-09
SoftwareLog.2010-08-01-10
         


        

Answer 1

I believe the simplest solution is as follows:

tail -f `ls -tr | tail -n 1`

Now, if your directory contains other log files like "SystemLog" and you only want the latest "SoftwareLog" file, then you would simply include a grep as follows:

tail -f `ls -tr | grep SoftwareLog | tail -n 1`