import os import sys def print_first_last_line(inputfile) : filesize = os.path.getsize(inputfile) blocksize = 1024 dat_file = open(inputfile, 'rb') headers = dat_file.readline().strip() if filesize > blocksize : maxseekpoint = (filesize // blocksize) dat_file.seek(maxseekpoint*blocksize) elif filesize : maxseekpoint = blocksize % filesize dat_file.seek(maxseekpoint) lines = dat_file.readlines() if lines : last_line = lines[-1].strip() print "first line : ", headers print "last line : ", last_line if __name__ == "__main__" : if len(sys.argv) >= 2: print_first_last_line(sys.argv[1]) else: sys.exit("Usage %s filename" % sys.argv[0])