Get last line of a text file with Python

I subscribed myself to a newsletter that propose each week a new Python quiz, then answer it the day after. I accepted the challenge (for now, at least) and answer here when I’ve a solution to the quizzes. Let’s start with the first post with the first quiz.

The first question was:

“Ask the user for the name of a text file. Display the final line of that file.”

Seems quietly easy, here is my solution. I don’t like the fact I needed to “import sys” but didn’t find nothing better for asking a filename to user.

import sys
try:
    with open(sys.argv[1], 'r') as f:
        row = old_row = f.readline()
        while row:
            old_row = row
            row = f.readline()
        print("Last line is: \n\n%s\n" % old_row)
except:
    print("Use like this:\n%s <path_to_file>\n" % sys.argv[0])

This instead was the “correct” answer:

filename = raw_input("Enter a filename: ")
print(open(filename).readlines()[-1])

Ok, first quiz and first interpretation error here. I wonder myself which part of “Ask the user” was not clear to me :-). My solution needs the filename passed as command line argument, and doesn’t ask the user for it. Next time I’ll try to understand better the posed question.

See ya!