Get last n lines or bytes of a huge file in Windows (like Unix's tail). Avoid time consuming options

Question

I need to retrieve the last n lines of huge files (1-4 Gb), in Windows 7. Due to corporate restrictions, I cannot run any command that is not built-in. The problem is that all solutions I found appear to read the whole file, so they are extremely slow.

Can this be accomplished, fast?

Notes:

1. I managed to get the first n lines, fast.
2. It is ok if I get the last n bytes. (I used this https://stackoverflow.com/a/18936628/2707864 for the first n bytes).

Solutions here Unix tail equivalent command in Windows Powershell did not work. Using -wait does not make it fast. I do not have -tail (and I do not know if it will work fast).

PS: There are quite a few related questions for head and tail, but not focused on the issue of speed. Therefore, useful or accepted answers there may not be useful here. E.g.,

Windows equivalent of the 'tail' command

CMD.EXE batch script to display last 10 lines from a txt file

Extract N lines from file using single windows command

https://serverfault.com/questions/490841/how-to-display-the-first-n-lines-of-a-command-output-in-windows-the-equivalent

powershell to get the first x MB of a file

https://superuser.com/questions/859870/windows-equivalent-of-the-head-c-command

Answer 1

If you have PowerShell 3 or higher, you can use the -Tail parameter for Get-Content to get the last n lines.

Get-content -tail 5 PATH_TO_FILE;

On a 34MB text file on my local SSD, this returned in 1 millisecond vs. 8.5 seconds for get-content |select -last 5

Answer 2

How about this (reads last 8 bytes for demo):

$fpath = "C:\10GBfile.dat"
$fs = [IO.File]::OpenRead($fpath)
$fs.Seek(-8, 'End') | Out-Null
for ($i = 0; $i -lt 8; $i++)
{
    $fs.ReadByte()
}

---

UPDATE. To interpret bytes as string (but be sure to select correct encoding - here UTF8 is used):

$N = 8
$fpath = "C:\10GBfile.dat"
$fs = [IO.File]::OpenRead($fpath)
$fs.Seek(-$N, [System.IO.SeekOrigin]::End) | Out-Null
$buffer = new-object Byte[] $N
$fs.Read($buffer, 0, $N) | Out-Null
$fs.Close()
[System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetString($buffer)

---

UPDATE 2. To read last M lines, we'll be reading the file by portions until there are more than M newline char sequences in the result:

$M = 3
$fpath = "C:\10GBfile.dat"

$result = ""
$seq = "`r`n"
$buffer_size = 10
$buffer = new-object Byte[] $buffer_size

$fs = [IO.File]::OpenRead($fpath)
while (([regex]::Matches($result, $seq)).Count -lt $M)
{
    $fs.Seek(-($result.Length + $buffer_size), [System.IO.SeekOrigin]::End) | Out-Null
    $fs.Read($buffer, 0, $buffer_size) | Out-Null
    $result = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetString($buffer) + $result
}
$fs.Close()

($result -split $seq) | Select -Last $M

Try playing with bigger $buffer_size - this ideally is equal to expected average line length to make fewer disk operations. Also pay attention to $seq - this could be \r\n or just \n. This is very dirty code without any error handling and optimizations.

Answer 3

When the file is already opened, it's better to use

Get-Content $fpath -tail 10

because of "exception calling "OpenRead" with "1" argument(s): "The process cannot access the file..."

Answer 4

With the awesome answer by Aziz Kabyshev, which solves the issue of speed, and with some googling, I ended up using this script

$fpath = $Args[1]
$fs = [IO.File]::OpenRead($fpath)
$fs.Seek(-$Args[0], 'End') | Out-Null
$mystr = ''
for ($i = 0; $i -lt $Args[0]; $i++)
{
    $mystr = ($mystr) + ([char[]]($fs.ReadByte()))
}
$fs.Close()
Write-Host $mystr

which I call from a batch file containing

@PowerShell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "& '.\myscript.ps1' %1 %2"

(thanks to How to run a PowerShell script from a batch file).

Answer 5

This is not an answer, but a large comment as reply to sancho.s' answer.

When you want to use small PowerShell scripts from a Batch file, I suggest you to use the method below, that is simpler and allows to keep all the code in the same Batch file:

@PowerShell  ^
   $fpath = %2;  ^
   $fs = [IO.File]::OpenRead($fpath);  ^
   $fs.Seek(-%1, 'End') ^| Out-Null;  ^
   $mystr = '';  ^
   for ($i = 0; $i -lt %1; $i++)  ^
   {  ^
      $mystr = ($mystr) + ([char[]]($fs.ReadByte()));  ^
   }  ^
   Write-Host $mystr
%End PowerShell%

Answer 6

Get last n bytes of a file:

set file="C:\Covid.mp4"
set n=7

copy /b %file% tmp
for %i in (tmp) do set /a m=%~zi-%n%
FSUTIL file seteof tmp %m%
fsutil file createnew temp 1
FSUTIL file seteof temp %n%
type temp >> tmp
fc /b tmp %file% | more +1 > temp

REM problem parsing file with byte offsets in hex from fc, to be converted to decimal offsets before output
type nul > tmp
for /f "tokens=1-3 delims=: " %i in (temp) do set /a 0x%i >> tmp & set /p=": " <nul>> tmp & echo %j %k >> tmp

set /a n=%m%+%n%-1

REM output
type nul > temp
for /l %j in (%m%,1,%n%) do (find "%j: "<  tmp || echo doh: la 00)>> temp
(for /f "tokens=3" %i in (temp) do set /p=%i <nul) & del tmp & del temp

Tested on Win 10 cmd Surface Laptop 1
Result: 1.43 GB file processed in 10 seconds