How do i read just the last line of a text file?

[nephish]

Hey there.
i want to set a variable to represent the last line of a text file
how do i do that?
or even better, how do i create a list of the lines of a text file?

[John Machin]

nephish wrote:

Hey there.
i want to set a variable to represent the last line of a text file
how do i do that?
or even better, how do i create a list of the lines of a text file?

Hey there to you too.

According to the manual
http://www.python.org/doc/2.4.1/lib/...e-objects.html

readlines([sizehint])
Read until EOF using readline() and return a list containing
the lines thus read.

Which part of this don't you understand?

[Chris F.A. Johnson]

On Sun, 29 May 2005 at 04:42 GMT, nephish wrote:

Hey there.
i want to set a variable to represent the last line of a text file
how do i do that?
or even better, how do i create a list of the lines of a text file?

from sys import argv ## Import argv from sys module

file = open(argv[1]) ## Open the file given on the command line
all_lines = file.readlines( ) ## Read all the lines
last_line = all_lines[-1] ## Assign the last line
--
Chris F.A. Johnson <http://cfaj.freeshell. org>
=============== =============== =============== =============== ======
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach, 2005, Apress
<http://www.torfree.net/~chris/books/cfaj/ssr.html>

[John Machin]

Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:

file = open(argv[1]) ## Open the file given on the command line
all_lines = file.readlines( ) ## Read all the lines

I see your shadowing and raise you one obfuscation:

open = file(argv[1]) ## File the open given on the command line
all_lines = open.readlines( ) ## Read all the lines

[Chris F.A. Johnson]

On Sun, 29 May 2005 at 05:57 GMT, John Machin wrote:

Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:

file = open(argv[1]) ## Open the file given on the command line
all_lines = file.readlines( ) ## Read all the lines
I see your shadowing and raise you one obfuscation:

;)
open = file(argv[1]) ## File the open given on the command line
all_lines = open.readlines( ) ## Read all the lines

Such verbosity! (I excuse mine on the grounds that it was my first
attempt at a Python program.)

all_lines = file(argv[1]).readlines()

And to answer the question in the subject line:

last_line = file(argv[1]).readlines()[-1]

Both of which assume "from sys import argv".
Now I have to get serious and forget those bad habits.

--
Chris F.A. Johnson <http://cfaj.freeshell. org>
=============== =============== =============== =============== ======
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach, 2005, Apress
<http://www.torfree.net/~chris/books/cfaj/ssr.html>

[Andy Leszczynski]

Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:

On Sun, 29 May 2005 at 05:57 GMT, John Machin wrote:

Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:

file = open(argv[1]) ## Open the file given on the command line
all_lines = file.readlines( ) ## Read all the lines

I see your shadowing and raise you one obfuscation:

;)

open = file(argv[1]) ## File the open given on the command line
all_lines = open.readlines( ) ## Read all the lines

Such verbosity! (I excuse mine on the grounds that it was my first
attempt at a Python program.)

all_lines = file(argv[1]).readlines()

And to answer the question in the subject line:

last_line = file(argv[1]).readlines()[-1]

Both of which assume "from sys import argv".
Now I have to get serious and forget those bad habits.

What if a file is long enough?

A.

[Steven Bethard]

Andy Leszczynski wrote:

Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:

And to answer the question in the subject line:

last_line = file(argv[1]).readlines()[-1]

Both of which assume "from sys import argv".

What if a file is long enough?

Huh? You mean what if it's too big to fit in memory? Then try this:

for last_line in file(argv[1]):
pass

At the end of the for loop, last_line should be bound to the last line
in the file. (If there's a chance your file might not have any lines,
you'll want to do some error checking...)

STeVe

[nephish]

cool. thanks for the help guys !

[Terry Reedy]

"Andy Leszczynski"

What if a file is long enough?

I believe you meant "What if a file is too long to read all into memory at
once?"

If the file is randomly accessible (with file.seek() backwards from the
end) then you can read a chunk at the end that you expect to be large
enough to contain the last line and search backwards for \n (ignoring a
terminating \n) to find the end of the next-to-last line. Even if the file
will fit in memory, this may be faster.

Terry J. Reedy