How to read last "n" lines of log file

Your code will perform very poorly, since you aren't allowing any caching to happen.
In addition, it will not work at all for Unicode.

I wrote the following implementation:

///<summary>Returns the end of a text reader.</summary>
///<param name="reader">The reader to read from.</param>
///<param name="lineCount">The number of lines to return.</param>
///<returns>The last lneCount lines from the reader.</returns>
public static string[] Tail(this TextReader reader, int lineCount) {
    var buffer = new List<string>(lineCount);
    string line;
    for (int i = 0; i < lineCount; i++) {
        line = reader.ReadLine();
        if (line == null) return buffer.ToArray();
        buffer.Add(line);
    }

    int lastLine = lineCount - 1;           //The index of the last line read from the buffer.  Everything > this index was read earlier than everything <= this indes

    while (null != (line = reader.ReadLine())) {
        lastLine++;
        if (lastLine == lineCount) lastLine = 0;
        buffer[lastLine] = line;
    }

    if (lastLine == lineCount - 1) return buffer.ToArray();
    var retVal = new string[lineCount];
    buffer.CopyTo(lastLine + 1, retVal, 0, lineCount - lastLine - 1);
    buffer.CopyTo(0, retVal, lineCount - lastLine - 1, lastLine + 1);
    return retVal;
}

Had trouble with your code. This is my version. Since its' a log file, something might be writing to it, so it's best making sure you're not locking it.

You go to the end. Start reading backwards until you reach n lines. Then read everything from there on.

        int n = 5; //or any arbitrary number
        int count = 0;
        string content;
        byte[] buffer = new byte[1];

        using (FileStream fs = new FileStream("text.txt", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.ReadWrite))
        {
            // read to the end.
            fs.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.End);

            // read backwards 'n' lines
            while (count < n)
            {
                fs.Seek(-1, SeekOrigin.Current);
                fs.Read(buffer, 0, 1);
                if (buffer[0] == '\n')
                {
                    count++;
                }

                fs.Seek(-1, SeekOrigin.Current); // fs.Read(...) advances the position, so we need to go back again
            }
            fs.Seek(1, SeekOrigin.Current); // go past the last '\n'

            // read the last n lines
            using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(fs))
            {
                content = sr.ReadToEnd();
            }
        }

A friend of mine uses this method (BackwardReader can be found here):

public static IList<string> GetLogTail(string logname, string numrows)
{
    int lineCnt = 1;
    List<string> lines = new List<string>();
    int maxLines;

    if (!int.TryParse(numrows, out maxLines))
    {
        maxLines = 100;
    }

    string logFile = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/" + logname);

    BackwardReader br = new BackwardReader(logFile);
    while (!br.SOF)
    {
        string line = br.Readline();
        lines.Add(line + System.Environment.NewLine);
        if (lineCnt == maxLines) break;
        lineCnt++;
    }
    lines.Reverse();
    return lines;
}

Does your log have lines of similar length? If yes, then you can calculate average length of the line, then do the following:

1. seek to end_of_file - lines_needed*avg_line_length (previous_point)
2. read everything up to the end
3. if you grabbed enough lines, that's fine. If no, seek to previous_point - lines_needed*avg_line_length
4. read everything up to previous_point
5. goto 3

memory-mapped file is also a good method -- map the tail of file, calculate lines, map the previous block, calculate lines etc. until you get the number of lines needed