readline() and specifying line number

[dbrb2]

A very basic question... I'm new to Python...

Using repeated calls to:

line=input.readline()

I can read succesive lines from a text file. Since each time I call this function I get the next line, there must be a poiter somewhere being incremented. Is there a way to manipulate this pointer such that I can instead specify the line I want to read (say line 5 or line 10) Of course I could just run the above x times to capture line x, but that seems very wasteful...

Cheers,

Ben

 

[StoneDeCroze]

Have you tried reading in the entire file? Not practical for massive files I know...

f = file('filename', 'r').readlines()
print f[linenumber]

you can also iterate over the file line by line:

for l in f:
print l

May use lots of memory if you have a BIG file - but it sure is quick.

 

[EBGreen]

There is a Seek Method but it is Byte based not line based. If your file has lines of a known/constant byte length, this will work.

The problem with something to move to a specific line is that the program has know way to know how many bytes to skip over to get to the line you want. The only way to know this is to read the file into a buffer until it gets to the line you are looking for. This is exactly the same thing that you do with your repeated calls to Readline().

[red]"... isn't sanity really just a one trick pony anyway?! I mean, all you get is one trick, rational thinking, but when you are good and crazy, oooh, oooh, oooh, the sky is the limit!" - The Tick[/red]

 

[dbrb2]

The only way to know this is to read the file into a buffer until it gets to the line you are looking for"

Good point. So I could puttogether a simple function to read a specified line, but it would do it by reading in every preceeding line and counting them as it went.

Cheers,

Ben