Re: Performing a tail(1) in Perl (reading the last N lines of a file)

[broquaint]

I'm not sure how this benchmarks, but it is a little more succinct ;-)

use Tie::File;

my $length = shift @ARGV;
my $file   = shift @ARGV;

tie(my @file, "Tie::File", $file, autochomp => 0) or die("ack - $!");

print @file[$#file - $length + 1 .. $#file];

_________
broquaint

Update: fixed slice code as it was off by one (as noted by grinder)

[Dominus]

Says broquaint:

I'm not sure how this benchmarks, but it is a little more succinct ;-)

use Tie::File;
...

print @file[$#file - $length + 1 .. $#file];

It should benchmark OK, although not as well as a special-purpose backward-file-reader. But I agree with you about the succinctness. I mostly followed up to point out that you can do even better:

    print @file[-$length .. -1];

Hope this helps.

--
Mark Dominus
Perl Paraphernalia