Question

I have a large file and I need to get only the last line from it (\n only is the line separator).
I need this to be done on iOS device, so it cannot take much memory or cpu time (like reading the whole file).
How can I do this in either Objective-C,c++ or c++11?

Answer 1

I have the feature in my production code.The idea is that try to read the last line by seeking and reading.Take a look please.

bool readLastLine(std::string const& filename, std::string& lastLine)
{
    std::ifstream in(filename.c_str(),std::ifstream::binary);
    if(!in) return false;
    in.seekg(0, std::ifstream::end);
    const std::streamoff len = in.tellg();
    //empty file
    if(len == 0)
    {
        lastLine = "";
        return true;
    }
    int buf_size = 128;
    std::vector<char> buf;
    while(in)
    {   
        if(buf_size > len)
        {
            buf_size = len;
        }
        buf.resize(buf_size);
        in.seekg(0 - buf_size, std::ifstream::end);
        in.read(&buf[0],buf_size);
        //all content is in the buffer or we already have the complete last line
        if(len == buf_size || std::count(buf.begin(), buf.end(), '\n') > 1)
        {
            break;
        }
        //try enlarge the buffer
        buf_size *= 2;
    }
    //find the second line seperator from the end if any
    auto i = std::find(++buf.rbegin(),buf.rend(), '\n');
    lastLine.assign(i == buf.rend() ?  buf.begin() : buf.begin() + std::distance(i, buf.rend()), buf.begin() + buf_size);
    return true;
}