As a business owner or a marketer, it is crucial to understand the basics of programming. In particular, Python is a language that is widely used for web development, data analysis, and automation. In this article, we will discuss how to read a file line by line into a list in Python. This is a common task that can come in handy when dealing with large datasets, and understanding how to perform it efficiently is an essential skill for any data-driven business.

Before diving into the code, let’s start with some background information. Python is an interpreted language, which means that it is not compiled like C or Java. Instead, it is executed line by line by an interpreter. This makes it an excellent language for scripting and rapid development, as you can quickly write and test code without the need for complex setup and compilation.

Now, let’s get to the code. The following code snippet shows how to read a file line by line into a list:

				
					with open('filename.txt') as f:
    lines = f.readlines()

In the code above, we use the with statement to open the file ‘filename.txt’. This is a context manager that ensures that the file is closed after we are done with it, even if an error occurs. We then call the readlines() method on the file object f, which returns a list of all the lines in the file.

But what if the file is too large to fit into memory? In that case, we can use a generator expression to read the file line by line, like this:

				
					with open('filename.txt') as f:
    lines = (line.strip() for line in f)

In this version, we use a generator expression instead of a list comprehension. This means that the lines variable is not actually a list, but a generator object. The strip() method is used to remove any trailing whitespace from each line. The advantage of using a generator is that it consumes less memory than a list, as it only reads one line at a time.

Another option is to use the yield keyword to create a generator function. This allows us to write more complex logic for processing each line, such as filtering or transforming the data. Here’s an example:

				
					def read_file(filename):
    with open(filename) as f:
        for line in f:
            yield line.strip()

lines = read_file('filename.txt')

In this version, we define a function read_file that takes a filename as an argument. Inside the function, we use a for loop to iterate over each line in the file, and the yield keyword to return the stripped line one at a time. This creates a generator that we can assign to the lines variable. By using a generator function, we can reuse the same logic with different files, and we only load one line at a time, which is memory-efficient.

Reading a file line by line into a list or a generator is a common task in Python, and there are several ways to do it efficiently. By understanding the basics of file I/O and generators, you can process large datasets without running out of memory or slowing down your code.


Thanks for reading. Happy coding!