A very handy tool in the UNIX world is tail. In particular the option -F proves useful if you want to view log files. But what do you do if you’re working with Windows? Of course, you have to search the Internet for a Windows port and go through the compile-hell. I have to admit, compiling tail wouldn’t be such a pain in the ass as compiler bigger programs. Nonetheless, I wasn’t willing to spend time searching and installing a Windows port of tail and thus I coded it within a couple of minutes. The following Python script only implements tail -F filename, but that was sufficient for my purposes.

import sys, time

lastLine = 0
f = 0

def dumpFile(f, start):
  f.seek(start)
  cur = start

  for line in f:
    print line,
    cur = f.tell()

  return cur

while True:
  try:
    f = open(sys.argv[1], 'rU')
    lastLine = dumpFile(f, lastLine)
    time.sleep(1.5)
  except IOError:
    print 'no such file' + sys.argv[1]
  finally:
    if f:
      f.close