How to read a text file reversely with iterator in C#

Question

I need to process a large file, around 400K lines and 200 M. But sometimes I have to process from bottom up. How can I use iterator (yield return) here? Basically I don\'t l

Answer 1

Very fast solution for huge files. Use powershell Get-Content cmdlet with Tail option. Calling powershell will give a little bit overhead, but for huge files its worthless

using System.Management.Automation;

const string FILE_PATH = @"d:\temp\b_media_27_34_0000_25393.txt";
var ps = PowerShell.Create();
ps.AddCommand("Get-Content")
    .AddParameter("Path", FILE_PATH)
    .AddParameter("Tail", 1);
var psResults = ps.Invoke();
var lastLine = psResults.FirstOrDefault()?.BaseObject.ToString();

ps.Dispose();

Required powershell reference

C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\WindowsPowerShell\3.0\System.Management.Automation.dll

Answer 2

You can read the file one character at a time backwards and cache all characters until you reach a carriage return and/or line feed.

You then reverse the collected string and yeld it as a line.

Answer 3

There are good answers here already, and here's another LINQ-compatible class you can use which focuses on performance and support for large files. It assumes a "\r\n" line terminator.

Usage:

var reader = new ReverseTextReader(@"C:\Temp\ReverseTest.txt");
while (!reader.EndOfStream)
    Console.WriteLine(reader.ReadLine());

ReverseTextReader Class:

/// <summary>
/// Reads a text file backwards, line-by-line.
/// </summary>
/// <remarks>This class uses file seeking to read a text file of any size in reverse order.  This
/// is useful for needs such as reading a log file newest-entries first.</remarks>
public sealed class ReverseTextReader : IEnumerable<string>
{
    private const int BufferSize = 16384;   // The number of bytes read from the uderlying stream.
    private readonly Stream _stream;        // Stores the stream feeding data into this reader
    private readonly Encoding _encoding;    // Stores the encoding used to process the file
    private byte[] _leftoverBuffer;         // Stores the leftover partial line after processing a buffer
    private readonly Queue<string> _lines;  // Stores the lines parsed from the buffer

    #region Constructors

    /// <summary>
    /// Creates a reader for the specified file.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="filePath"></param>
    public ReverseTextReader(string filePath)
        : this(new FileStream(filePath, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.Read), Encoding.Default)
    { }

    /// <summary>
    /// Creates a reader using the specified stream.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="stream"></param>
    public ReverseTextReader(Stream stream)
        : this(stream, Encoding.Default)
    { }

    /// <summary>
    /// Creates a reader using the specified path and encoding.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="filePath"></param>
    /// <param name="encoding"></param>
    public ReverseTextReader(string filePath, Encoding encoding)
        : this(new FileStream(filePath, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.Read), encoding)
    { }

    /// <summary>
    /// Creates a reader using the specified stream and encoding.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="stream"></param>
    /// <param name="encoding"></param>
    public ReverseTextReader(Stream stream, Encoding encoding)
    {          
        _stream = stream;
        _encoding = encoding;
        _lines = new Queue<string>(128);            
        // The stream needs to support seeking for this to work
        if(!_stream.CanSeek)
            throw new InvalidOperationException("The specified stream needs to support seeking to be read backwards.");
        if (!_stream.CanRead)
            throw new InvalidOperationException("The specified stream needs to support reading to be read backwards.");
        // Set the current position to the end of the file
        _stream.Position = _stream.Length;
        _leftoverBuffer = new byte[0];
    }

    #endregion

    #region Overrides

    /// <summary>
    /// Reads the next previous line from the underlying stream.
    /// </summary>
    /// <returns></returns>
    public string ReadLine()
    {
        // Are there lines left to read? If so, return the next one
        if (_lines.Count != 0) return _lines.Dequeue();
        // Are we at the beginning of the stream? If so, we're done
        if (_stream.Position == 0) return null;

        #region Read and Process the Next Chunk

        // Remember the current position
        var currentPosition = _stream.Position;
        var newPosition = currentPosition - BufferSize;
        // Are we before the beginning of the stream?
        if (newPosition < 0) newPosition = 0;
        // Calculate the buffer size to read
        var count = (int)(currentPosition - newPosition);
        // Set the new position
        _stream.Position = newPosition;
        // Make a new buffer but append the previous leftovers
        var buffer = new byte[count + _leftoverBuffer.Length];
        // Read the next buffer
        _stream.Read(buffer, 0, count);
        // Move the position of the stream back
        _stream.Position = newPosition;
        // And copy in the leftovers from the last buffer
        if (_leftoverBuffer.Length != 0)
            Array.Copy(_leftoverBuffer, 0, buffer, count, _leftoverBuffer.Length);
        // Look for CrLf delimiters
        var end = buffer.Length - 1;
        var start = buffer.Length - 2;
        // Search backwards for a line feed
        while (start >= 0)
        {
            // Is it a line feed?
            if (buffer[start] == 10)
            {
                // Yes.  Extract a line and queue it (but exclude the \r\n)
                _lines.Enqueue(_encoding.GetString(buffer, start + 1, end - start - 2));
                // And reset the end
                end = start;
            }
            // Move to the previous character
            start--;
        }
        // What's left over is a portion of a line. Save it for later.
        _leftoverBuffer = new byte[end + 1];
        Array.Copy(buffer, 0, _leftoverBuffer, 0, end + 1);
        // Are we at the beginning of the stream?
        if (_stream.Position == 0)
            // Yes.  Add the last line.
            _lines.Enqueue(_encoding.GetString(_leftoverBuffer, 0, end - 1));

        #endregion

        // If we have something in the queue, return it
        return _lines.Count == 0 ? null : _lines.Dequeue();
    }

    #endregion

    #region IEnumerator<string> Interface

    public IEnumerator<string> GetEnumerator()
    {
        string line;
        // So long as the next line isn't null...
        while ((line = ReadLine()) != null)
            // Read and return it.
            yield return line;
    }

    IEnumerator IEnumerable.GetEnumerator()
    {
        throw new NotImplementedException();
    }

    #endregion
}

Answer 4

Attention: this approach doesn't work (explained in EDIT)

You could use File.ReadLines to get lines iterator

foreach (var line in File.ReadLines(@"C:\temp\ReverseRead.txt").Reverse())
{
    if (noNeedToReadFurther)
        break;

    // process line here
    Console.WriteLine(line);
}

EDIT:

After reading applejacks01's comment, I run some tests and it does look like .Reverse() actually loads whole file.

I used File.ReadLines() to print first line of a 40MB file - memory usage of console app was 5MB. Then, used File.ReadLines().Reverse() to print last line of same file - memory usage was 95MB.

Conclusion

Whatever `Reverse()' is doing, it is not a good choice for reading bottom of a big file.

Answer 5

To create a file iterator you can do this:

EDIT:

This is my fixed version of a fixed-width reverse file reader:

public static IEnumerable<string> readFile()
{
    using (FileStream reader = new FileStream(@"c:\test.txt",FileMode.Open,FileAccess.Read))
    {
        int i=0;
        StringBuilder lineBuffer = new StringBuilder();
        int byteRead;
        while (-i < reader.Length)
        {
            reader.Seek(--i, SeekOrigin.End);
            byteRead = reader.ReadByte();
            if (byteRead == 10 && lineBuffer.Length > 0)
            {
                yield return Reverse(lineBuffer.ToString());
                lineBuffer.Remove(0, lineBuffer.Length);
            }
            lineBuffer.Append((char)byteRead);
        }
        yield return Reverse(lineBuffer.ToString());
        reader.Close();
    }
}

public static string Reverse(string str)
{
    char[] arr = new char[str.Length];
    for (int i = 0; i < str.Length; i++)
        arr[i] = str[str.Length - 1 - i];
    return new string(arr);
}

Answer 6

I know this post is very old but as I couldn't find how to use the most voted solution, I finally found this: here is the best answer I found with a low memory cost in VB and C#

http://www.blakepell.com/2010-11-29-backward-file-reader-vb-csharp-source

Hope, I'll help others with that because it tooks me hours to finally find this post!

[Edit]

Here is the c# code :

//*********************************************************************************************************************************
//
//             Class:  BackwardReader
//      Initial Date:  11/29/2010
//     Last Modified:  11/29/2010
//     Programmer(s):  Original C# Source - the_real_herminator
//                     http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/csharpgeneral/thread/9acdde1a-03cd-4018-9f87-6e201d8f5d09
//                     VB Converstion - Blake Pell
//
//*********************************************************************************************************************************

using System.Text;
using System.IO;
public class BackwardReader
{
    private string path;
    private FileStream fs = null;
    public BackwardReader(string path)
    {
        this.path = path;
        fs = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.ReadWrite);
        fs.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.End);
    }
    public string Readline()
    {
        byte[] line;
        byte[] text = new byte[1];
        long position = 0;
        int count;
        fs.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Current);
        position = fs.Position;
        //do we have trailing rn?
        if (fs.Length > 1)
        {
            byte[] vagnretur = new byte[2];
            fs.Seek(-2, SeekOrigin.Current);
            fs.Read(vagnretur, 0, 2);
            if (ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetString(vagnretur).Equals("rn"))
            {
                //move it back
                fs.Seek(-2, SeekOrigin.Current);
                position = fs.Position;
            }
        }
        while (fs.Position > 0)
        {
            text.Initialize();
            //read one char
            fs.Read(text, 0, 1);
            string asciiText = ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetString(text);
            //moveback to the charachter before
            fs.Seek(-2, SeekOrigin.Current);
            if (asciiText.Equals("n"))
            {
                fs.Read(text, 0, 1);
                asciiText = ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetString(text);
                if (asciiText.Equals("r"))
                {
                    fs.Seek(1, SeekOrigin.Current);
                    break;
                }
            }
        }
        count = int.Parse((position - fs.Position).ToString());
        line = new byte[count];
        fs.Read(line, 0, count);
        fs.Seek(-count, SeekOrigin.Current);
        return ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetString(line);
    }
    public bool SOF
    {
        get
        {
            return fs.Position == 0;
        }
    }
    public void Close()
    {
        fs.Close();
    }
}