Trying to use File:Tail with Ruby

Hi

I am a newbie and I am dabbling with scripting and using Ruby to monitor some logs and ran into a script that I thought would do the job. This is the script I found -

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require 'rubygems'
require 'pony'
require 'file/tail'

def fatal_check(file, pattern)
File::Tail::Logfile.open(file, :backward => 0) do |log|
log.tail do |line|
date = `date +%D-%T`
Pony.mail(:to => 'you@example.com', :from => 'me@example.com', :subject => "There was a nasty error on #{date}", :body => line)
end
end
end

fatal_check(File.dirname(__FILE__) + "/test.log", /FATAL/)

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I don't understand how the method is monitoring the pattern as I dont see it being called in the method. From trying it out, it appears that any new lines causes an email to send.

Any help in the right direction would be helpful

Hi,

I guess you got the code from this thread.

Yes, you're right that the pattern isn't used. But are you really surprised that a script somebody posted in some forum (obviously without testing it) doesn't work?

But it should work when you add an "if" statement:


If it doesn't work, read through the documentation of File::Tail and write the script yourself. That's always better than copying and pasting code from the internet.

Thank you! I was not surprised but I thought I was missing something. This makes sense. Thanks for the help!