Tail how to skip last line

Question

I am polling a csv file and want to capture the the last 5 lines of the file periodically. Is there a way to do that while skipping the last line. For example

File I'm Polling:

Fooo1,bar1,bar1
Fooo2,bar2,bar2
Fooo3,bar3,bar3
Fooo4,bar4,bar4
Fooo5,bar5,bar5
Fooo6,bar6,bar6
Fooo7,bar7,bar7

Tail command would capture lines 2-6 only.

The problem is that the file keeps growing.

By *periodically* do you mean every 3 minutes, for example, you want to capture the last 5 lines? Could you be more clear what your requirements are? — lurker, Jun 24 '15 at 12:18

score 8 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 24 '15 at 12:38

8

I would suggest you use this:

tail -5 file.csv | head -4

answered Jun 24 '15 at 12:38

Benoit Lacherez

506
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score 7 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 03 '19 at 17:37

7

Use this instead:

head -n -1 file.csv

It skips last line Explained here.

answered Jun 03 '19 at 17:37

Vijay

89
1
4

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 01 '22 at 14:36

2

I use sed to delete lines from command output that I know is going to have some amount of header & trailer lines. For instance, to delete the first 3 lines and delete the last line of output:

system "WRKSBS" | sed -e '1,3d;$d'

answered Aug 01 '22 at 14:36

Kelly Beard

684
1
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Tail how to skip last line

3 Answers3