Date: 29 Jun 2001 06:13:12 GMT
From: damian@qimr.edu.au (Damian James)
Subject: Re: pull out last line in a text file
Message-Id: <slrn9jo71u.9fa.damian@puma.qimr.edu.au>

Logan Shaw chose 28 Jun 2001 20:09:04 -0500 to say this:
>In article <9hgjl1$kqs$1@charity.cs.utexas.edu>,
>Logan Shaw <logan@cs.utexas.edu> wrote:
>>In article <9hgfbe01ehm@drn.newsguy.com>,
>>Patrick Flaherty  <Patrick_member@newsguy.com> wrote:
>>>How, in Perl, do I pull out the last line (or lines plural as in tail) of a text
>>>file?
>>
>>Here's the quick and dirty way:
>
>Oops, I forgot to give the obfuscated version:
>
>	print @{[<>]}[-3 .. -1];
>

A way to do this without reading the *whole* file into RAM:

my @lines = ('') x 3; 
shift @lines, push(@lines, $_) while <>;
print @lines;

Cheers,
Damian
-- 
@:=grep!($;+=m!$/|#!),split//,<DATA>;@;=0..$#:;while(@;){for($;=@;;--$;;)
{@;[$;,$:]=@;[$:,$;]if($:=rand$;+$|)!=$;}push@|,shift@;if$;[0]==@|;select
$,,$,,$,,1/80;print qq x\bxx((@;+@|)*$|++),@:[@|,@;],!@;&&$/} __END__
Just another Perl Hacker # rev 3.1 -- a JAPH in progress, I guess...