Python readline() from a string?

Question

In python, is there a built-in way to do a readline() on string? I have a large chunk of data and want to strip off just the first couple lines w/o doing split() on the who

Answer 1

Python 2

You can use StringIO:

>>> msg = "Bob Smith\nJane Doe\nJane,\nPlease order more widgets\nThanks,\nBob\n"
>>> msg
'Bob Smith\nJane Doe\nJane,\nPlease order more widgets\nThanks,\nBob\n'
>>> import StringIO
>>> buf = StringIO.StringIO(msg)
>>> buf.readline()
'Bob Smith\n'
>>> buf.readline()
'Jane Doe\n'

Be sure to use cStringIO if performance is important.

Python 3

You can use io.StringIO:

>>> import io
>>> buf = io.StringIO(msg)
>>> buf.readline()
'Bob Smith\n'
>>> buf.readline()
'Jane Doe\n'
>>> len(buf.read())
44