Python in a Nutshell

Auxiliary Modules for File I/O

File objects supply all functionality that is strictly needed for file I/O. There are some auxiliary Python library modules, however, that offer convenient supplementary functionality, making I/O even easier and handier in several important special cases.

The fileinput Module

The fileinput module lets you loop over all the lines in a list of text files. Performance is quite good, comparable to the performance of direct iteration on each file, since fileinput uses internal buffering to minimize I/O. Therefore, you can use module fileinput for line-oriented file input whenever you find the module’s rich functionality convenient, without worrying about performance. The input function is the main function of module fileinput, and the module also provides a FileInput class that supports the same functionality as the module’s functions.

The linecache Module

The linecache module lets you read a given line (specified by number) from a file with a given name. The module keeps an internal cache, so if you need to read several lines from a file, the operation is cheaper than opening and examining the file each time. Module linecache exposes the following functions.

The struct Module

The struct module lets you pack binary data into a string, and then unpack the bytes of such a string back into the data they represent. Such operations can be useful for various kinds of low-level programming. Most often, you use module struct to interpret data records from binary ...