Or better yet, using the safer syntax options available in 5.6 and later:

my $lastline = do {
    open my $pipe, '-|', tail => -1, $file
        or die "Can't spawn tail: $!\n";
    <$pipe>;
};
print $lastline;

[download]

I'm not sure why you chose to write your loop that way, either. Why the obfuscatory infinite loop with an abort condition as in this?

while( 1 ) {
    my $file = shift || last;
    # ...
}

[download]

It took me a moment to realize that you meant something entirely different than what I assumed at first glance. The natural thing would have been to put the abort condition where you normally put it: in the loop condition.

while( @ARGV ) {
    my $file = shift;
    # ...
}

[download]

Of course, that's clearer written as

for my $file ( @ARGV ) {
    # ...
}

[download]

So we get

for my $file ( @ARGV ) {
    my $lastline = do {
        open my $pipe, '-|', tail => -1, $file
            or die "Can't spawn tail: $!\n";
        <$pipe>;
    };
    print $lastline;
}

[download]

I find that significantly clearer despite the changes not changing any of the semantics.

Makeshifts last the longest.

In reply to Re^2: Read Last Line of A File Only by Aristotle
in thread Read Last Line of A File Only by Anonymous Monk

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