Try using POE, the following code and other goodies are available at http://poe.perl.org in the POE_Cookbook directory under Watching_Logs.
POE is arrow that is definitely worth the effor of learning IMHO. But this code should get you tail functionality on threaded AS :0)
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# http://poe.perl.org/?POE_Cookbook/Watching_Logs
use POE qw/Wheel::FollowTail/;
use strict;
$| = 1;
my $filename = $ARGV[0];
die "Usage: $0 <filename>\n" unless $filename;
die "$0: $filename: No such file or directory\n" unless -e $filename;
die "$0: $filename: Permission denied\n" unless -r $filename;
POE::Session->create
( inline_states =>
{ _start => sub { $_[HEAP]->{wheel} =
POE::Wheel::FollowTail->new(
Filename => $_[ARG0],
InputEvent => 'got_line',
ErrorEvent => 'got_error',
SeekBack => 1024,
);
$_[HEAP]->{first} = 0;
},
got_line => sub { print "$_[ARG0]\n" if $_[HEAP]->{first}++ },
got_error => sub { warn "$_[ARG0]\n" },
},
args => [$filename],
);
$poe_kernel->run();
Happy Thanksgiving!
JamesNC