Fastest Way to Delete a Line from Large File in Python

Question

I am working with a very large (~11GB) text file on a Linux system. I am running it through a program which is checking the file for errors. Once an error is found, I need

Answer 1

You can have two file objects for the same file at the same time (one for reading, one for writing):

def removeLine(filename, lineno):
    fro = open(filename, "rb")

    current_line = 0
    while current_line < lineno:
        fro.readline()
        current_line += 1

    seekpoint = fro.tell()
    frw = open(filename, "r+b")
    frw.seek(seekpoint, 0)

    # read the line we want to discard
    fro.readline()

    # now move the rest of the lines in the file 
    # one line back 
    chars = fro.readline()
    while chars:
        frw.writelines(chars)
        chars = fro.readline()

    fro.close()
    frw.truncate()
    frw.close()