How can I tail a log file in Python?

Question

I\'d like to make the output of tail -F or something similar available to me in Python without blocking or locking. I\'ve found some really old code to do that here, but I\'

Answer 1

You could use the 'tailer' library: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/tailer/

It has an option to get the last few lines:

# Get the last 3 lines of the file
tailer.tail(open('test.txt'), 3)
# ['Line 9', 'Line 10', 'Line 11']

And it can also follow a file:

# Follow the file as it grows
for line in tailer.follow(open('test.txt')):
    print line

If one wants tail-like behaviour, that one seems to be a good option.