There is File::ReadBackwards...

I kind of like the tied filehandle method with that module:

use File::ReadBackwards;
tie *BW, 'File::ReadBackwards', 'log_file' or
    die "can't read 'log_file' $!" ;

while( <BW> ) {
    print ;
}
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You could also use Tie::File and just loop over indices of -1, -2, -3, -4, etc.

Update: Here's an example of the Tie::File method.

use Tie::File;
tie my @array, 'Tie::File', 'log_file' or 
    die "can't read 'log_file' $!";
for ( 1 .. @array ) {
    $_ = -$_;
    print $array[$_];
}
[download]

Note that when counting indeces from the end going backward with an array, the last element starts at -1, not 0, and the first element will be -@array, not -$#array. Just a possible gotcha to watch out for.