How to Read last lines from a big file with Go every 10 secs

Issue

how can I read the last two lines from a big log file without load it into memory completely?

I need read it every 10 secs(On a Win machine)…and I’m stuck trying to read the last lines..

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "time"
    "os"
)

const MYFILE = "logfile.log"

func main() {
    c := time.Tick(10 * time.Second)
    for now := range c {
        readFile(MYFILE)
    }
}

func readFile(fname string){
    file, err:=os.Open(fname)
    if err!=nil{
        panic(err)
    }
    buf:=make([]byte, 32)
    c, err:=file.ReadAt(32, ????)
    fmt.Printf("%s\n", c)


}

The log file is something like:

07/25/2013 11:55:42.400, 0.559
07/25/2013 11:55:52.200, 0.477
07/25/2013 11:56:02.000, 0.463
07/25/2013 11:56:11.800, 0.454
07/25/2013 11:56:21.600, 0.424
07/25/2013 11:56:31.400, 0.382
07/25/2013 11:56:41.200, 0.353
07/25/2013 11:56:51.000, 0.384
07/25/2013 11:57:00.800, 0.393
07/25/2013 11:57:10.600, 0.456

Thanks!

Solution

You can use file.Seek() or file.ReadAt() to almost the end and then Reading forward. You can only estimate where to start seeking unless you can know that 2 lines = x bytes.

You can get the File length by using the os.Stat(name)

Here is an example based on ReadAt, Stat, and your sample log file:

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "os"
    "time"
)

const MYFILE = "logfile.log"

func main() {
    c := time.Tick(10 * time.Second)
    for _ = range c {
        readFile(MYFILE)
    }
}

func readFile(fname string) {
    file, err := os.Open(fname)
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }
    defer file.Close()

    buf := make([]byte, 62)
    stat, err := os.Stat(fname)
    start := stat.Size() - 62
    _, err = file.ReadAt(buf, start)
    if err == nil {
        fmt.Printf("%s\n", buf)
    }

}

Answered By – Joshua

Answer Checked By – Willingham (GoLangFix Volunteer)