How to iterate across lines in two files simultaneously?

Question

I have two files, and I want to perform some line-wise operation across both of them. (In other words, the first lines of each file correspond, as do the second, etc.) Now,

Answer 1

Python 2:

Use itertools.izip to join the two iterators.

from itertools import izip
for line_from_file_1, line_from_file_2 in izip(open(file_1), open(file_2)):

If the files are of unequal length, use izip_longest.

In Python 3, use zip and zip_longest instead. Also, use a with to open files, so that closing is handled automatically even in case of errors.

with open(file1name) as file1, open(file2name) as file2:
    for line1, line2 in zip(file1, file2):
        #do stuff