Open rolling log file while being written to

Question

Can anyone point me at an application to display/view a rolling log file as it is being written to?

I know there are apps out there, but googling just gives me questions about writing to/creating the logs. [This is Windows, not Unix]

Answer 1

You could try the tail tool, with follow option.

Answer 2

Log4View can do that but it is commercial. Another idea would be to configure a UDP appender, then you can use log2console.

Answer 3

tail -f /path/to/log 

will show the last 10 or so lines of the log and then show you any new lines written to the log as they are written

Answer 4

Baretail.

There is a free version if you don't mind a small delay while it displays the splash screen or you can pay $25 to remove the delay or $35 for BaretailPro which also allows you to search the log files.

I use BaretailPro on my own machine and the free version of Baretail if I am working on a customer's computer.