Powershell tail multiple files command

Question

I can tail one file via the following command:

Get-Content -Path C:\log1.txt -Tail 10 –Wait

How do I extend this to multiple files, I have tried the following with no luck:

Get-Content -Path C:\log1.txt,C:\log2.txt -Tail 10 –Wait

This will only pick up updates from the first file, not the second.

Answer 1

Based on @mjolinor's comment, I have come up with the following that appears to work,

Workflow My-Tail
{
    Param([string[]] $Path)

    foreach -parallel ($file in $path)
    {
        Get-Content -Path $file -Tail 1 -Wait
    }
}

My-Tail (dir C:\*.log -Include log1.txt,log2.txt)

However, this has some sort of progress bar that appears...

Answer 2

I can't speak to how efficient this is, but since I'm using PowerShell Core 7.1.3, I can't use Workflows or ForEach -Parallel, but I can use ForEach-Object -Parallel, so I tried it just to see what would happen...

gci -Path C:\ -Filter log*.txt |
    % -Parallel {
        cat -Wait -Tail 10 -Path $_
    } -ThrottleLimit 30

In my case, I had 27 files I needed to monitor, so I chose a number just above that, and this seemed to work.

Just to be sure it was working, I used this, which will output the source file name before each line:

gci -Path C:\ -Filter log*.txt |
    % -Parallel {
        $file = $_;
        cat -Wait -Tail 10 -Path $file |
            % { write "$($file.Name): ${_}" }
    } -ThrottleLimit 30