Read first N lines of a file in python
We have a large raw data file that we would like to trim to a specified size. I am experienced in .net c#, however would like to do this in python to simplify things and out of interest. How would I go about getting the first N lines of a text file in python? Will the OS being used have any effect on the implementation? John La Rooy Python 2 with open("datafile") as myfile: head = [next(myfile) for x in xrange(N)] print head Python 3 with open("datafile") as myfile: head = [next(myfile) for x in range(N)] print(head) Here's another way (both Python 2 & 3) from itertools import islice with open