Xref: utzoo comp.unix.questions:30955 comp.lang.perl:5165
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uunet!stanford.edu!agate!ucbvax!iwarp.intel.com!news
From: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal L. Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: How to print last <n> pages of a file?
Message-ID: <1991May2.182639.21845@iwarp.intel.com>
Date: 2 May 91 18:26:39 GMT
References: <1991May2.162355.779@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov>
Sender: news@iwarp.intel.com
Reply-To: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal L. Schwartz)
Followup-To: comp.unix.questions
Organization: Stonehenge; netaccess via Intel, Beaverton, Oregon, USA
Lines: 37
In-Reply-To: pjs@euclid.jpl.nasa.gov (Peter Scott)

In article <1991May2.162355.779@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov>, pjs@euclid (Peter Scott) writes:
| How can I print the last <n> pages of a text file?  Said file has form
| feeds at random places, so "tail -132 file | lpr" won't work.  Now, I tried
| "pr file | tail -132" but that includes the 5-line headers and footers
| that I don't want and don't get with "lpr file".  So I tried 
| "pr -t file | tail -132" but the -t option turns off page filling so the
| form feeds aren't expanded :-(.
| 
| Any suggestions?  SunOS 4.1 over here.

A quick Perl solution:

################################################## snip
#!/usr/bin/perl

$tail = shift || 1;
	## first arg is number of pages to tail (default is 1)
	## rest of args are processed like "cat"

$/ = "\f"; # input separator set to form-feed
while (<>) {
	push(@q,$_);
	shift(@q) while @q > $tail; # keep only $tail pages in queue
}
print @q;
exit 0;
################################################## snip

Perl is available for free for all UNIX-like os's at any of the GNU
sites or devvax.jpl.nasa.gov.

print "Just another Perl hacker,"
-- 
/=Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ==========\
| on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III      |
| merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn |
\=Cute Quote: "Intel: putting the 'backward' in 'backward compatible'..."====/