Java IO implementation of unix/linux “tail -f”

Question

I\'m wondering what techniques and/or library to use to implement the functionality of the linux command \"tail -f \". I\'m essentially looking for a drop in add-on/replace

Answer 1

Check JLogTailer, which does this logic.

The main point in the code is:

public void run() {
    try {
        while (_running) {
            Thread.sleep(_updateInterval);
            long len = _file.length();
            if (len < _filePointer) {
                // Log must have been jibbled or deleted.
                this.appendMessage("Log file was reset. Restarting logging from start of file.");
                _filePointer = len;
            }
            else if (len > _filePointer) {
                // File must have had something added to it!
                RandomAccessFile raf = new RandomAccessFile(_file, "r");
                raf.seek(_filePointer);
                String line = null;
                while ((line = raf.readLine()) != null) {
                    this.appendLine(line);
                }
                _filePointer = raf.getFilePointer();
                raf.close();
            }
        }
    }
    catch (Exception e) {
        this.appendMessage("Fatal error reading log file, log tailing has stopped.");
    }
    // dispose();
}