sub print_trailing_lines {
    my $file       = shift(); # file to read
    my $num_lines  = shift(); # number of lines to grab
    my $block_size = shift() || 1024; # size of blocks to slurp

    my @lines = (); #array of lines

    open(FILE, "<$file")
         or die "could not open $file for reading: $!";

    seek(FILE, -$block_size, 2); # go to the end, minus a block

    while ($num_lines) { # while we've got more lines to grab...
	my $block = undef;
	read(FILE, $block, $block_size, 0); # suck in a block
	seek(FILE, -2 * $block_size, 1); # back up in file by two blocks

	my @chunks = split /\n/, $block; # split block into lines

	# cat last line from this block with first line of previous block
	push(@lines, pop(@chunks) . shift(@lines)) if @lines;

	# deal with fact that current block
        # might have more lines than we want
	shift(@chunks) while(@chunks > $num_lines);

	# subsume this block's lines
	unshift(@lines, @chunks);

	# make note of how many lines we grabbed
	$num_lines -= scalar(@chunks);
    }

    close(FILE);
    print join("\n", @lines), "\n";
}