I can read the last line by:

while (<>) {
 $LastLine = $_;

Thanks in advance

ah.

Andrew Hunt

   I can read the last line by:

   while (<>) {
    $LastLine = $_;
   }

   but how do I capture the last 2-4 lines?

How about:

open(LASTLINES, "tail -4 $file") || die "Can't open file: $!\n";

while (<LASTLINES>) {
    # do whatever to your file lines

while (<>) {

This last one is probably only good if you want to use the other lines for
something, or if it's a relatively small file.  If the file is of any
noticable size, you might prefer the first method.

--
  University of Florida, Department of Computer and Information Sciences

              smail: Stephen P Potter, E309A CSE, UF Campus
Click here to find out about the <a href="http://www.cis.ufl.edu/perl">Perl World Wide Web Page</a>

Would this do it?

while ( <> ) {

--
--
jan b schipmolder

tail -4 file

---
          __            
         /  \           |
         \__/__         |         Bob Mackay
       ______  \        |         Tandem Computers Inc.
      /   /  \  \       |         (408) 285 4218

       \_______/        |

#!/usr/local/bin/perl
# usage - mytail filename number
$name = shift;
$num = shift;
open(YOURFILE,"<$name");
$lines[$i++]=(-s $name);
# scan once thru the file to get the length of each line
while(<YOURFILE>){
  $cur+=length;
  $lines[$i++]=($lines[0] - $cur);

This can be generalized to most any separator.

Bill

--

Former Compuinfobankingshoppingtainmentmeister
will hack perl for Texas BBQ

: You can do it without slurping the whole file like this:

: #!/usr/local/bin/perl
: # usage - mytail filename number
: $name = shift;
: $num = shift;
: open(YOURFILE,"<$name");
: $lines[$i++]=(-s $name);
: # scan once thru the file to get the length of each line
: while(<YOURFILE>){
:   $cur+=length;
:   $lines[$i++]=($lines[0] - $cur);
: }
: # now fp is at eof, seek to the desired line, read, and spew
: seek(YOURFILE,-($lines[$i-($num+1)]),1);        
: read(YOURFILE,$output,$lines[$i-($num+1)]);    
: print $output;      

this is handy... but is there a way to follow the file similar to what
tail -f does?

i.e keep the file open and print new lines as they come in?

thanks

Bry

--

bryan collins

                email:

        I just wanna be of the piglet way.................

2.41) How do I do a "tail -f" in Perl?

    Larry says that the solution is to put a call to seek in yourself.
    First try

            seek(GWFILE, 0, 1);

    If that doesn't work (depends on your stdio implementation), then
    you need something more like this:

    for(;;) {
            for ($curpos = tell(GWFILE); $_ = <GWFILE>; $curpos = tell(GWFILE)) {
                   search for some stuff and put it into files
            }
            sleep for a while
            seek(GWFILE, $curpos, 0);
    }

--tom
--

      "Will Hack Perl for Fine Food and Fun"
        Boulder Colorado  303-444-3212