How to read a file in reverse order?

How to read a file in reverse order using python? I want to read a file from last line to first line.


A correct, efficient answer written as a generator.

import os

def reverse_readline(filename, buf_size=8192):
    """A generator that returns the lines of a file in reverse order"""
    with open(filename) as fh:
        segment = None
        offset = 0
        fh.seek(0, os.SEEK_END)
        file_size = remaining_size = fh.tell()
        while remaining_size > 0:
            offset = min(file_size, offset + buf_size)
            fh.seek(file_size - offset)
            buffer = fh.read(min(remaining_size, buf_size))
            remaining_size -= buf_size
            lines = buffer.split('\n')
            # The first line of the buffer is probably not a complete line so
            # we'll save it and append it to the last line of the next buffer
            # we read
            if segment is not None:
                # If the previous chunk starts right from the beginning of line
                # do not concat the segment to the last line of new chunk.
                # Instead, yield the segment first 
                if buffer[-1] != '\n':
                    lines[-1] += segment
                else:
                    yield segment
            segment = lines[0]
            for index in range(len(lines) - 1, 0, -1):
                if lines[index]:
                    yield lines[index]
        # Don't yield None if the file was empty
        if segment is not None:
            yield segment

for line in reversed(open("filename").readlines()):
    print line.rstrip()

And in Python 3:

for line in reversed(list(open("filename"))):
    print(line.rstrip())

You can also use python module file_read_backwards.

After installing it, via pip install file_read_backwards (v1.2.1), you can read the entire file backwards (line-wise) in a memory efficient manner via:

#!/usr/bin/env python2.7

from file_read_backwards import FileReadBackwards

with FileReadBackwards("/path/to/file", encoding="utf-8") as frb:
    for l in frb:
         print l

It supports "utf-8","latin-1", and "ascii" encodings.

Support is also available for python3. Further documentation can be found at http://file-read-backwards.readthedocs.io/en/latest/readme.html


How about something like this:

import os


def readlines_reverse(filename):
    with open(filename) as qfile:
        qfile.seek(0, os.SEEK_END)
        position = qfile.tell()
        line = ''
        while position >= 0:
            qfile.seek(position)
            next_char = qfile.read(1)
            if next_char == "\n":
                yield line[::-1]
                line = ''
            else:
                line += next_char
            position -= 1
        yield line[::-1]


if __name__ == '__main__':
    for qline in readlines_reverse(raw_input()):
        print qline

Since the file is read character by character in reverse order, it will work even on very large files, as long as individual lines fit into memory.