Python read from text file

Question

I want my simple python program to go to a text file and collect 5 lines to print out.

I have got this far but it returns the whole file which I don't want to do yet.

file=open('IH.txt','r')
text = file.read()
print(text)
file.close()

Can anyone help?

Why don't you open a file using return and increment the counter variable by one. In case the counter reaches 5 do return. — Vidya Sagar
– Vidya Sagar, Commented Oct 22, 2017 at 9:36
go through https://docs.python.org/2/tutorial/inputoutput.html#reading-and-writing-files — Arpit Goyal
– Arpit Goyal, Commented Oct 22, 2017 at 9:36
Vidya, I'm a complete novice and don't know what 'return' is — UKcodeNovice
– UKcodeNovice, Commented Oct 22, 2017 at 9:48

J...S · Accepted Answer · 2017-10-22 10:14:35Z

2

How about

file=open('IH.txt','r')
text=""
for i in range(6):
    text += file.readLine()
print(text)
file.close()

read() reads the entire file. readline() reads only a line.

The loop has 5 iterations and in each iteration, the next line from the file is appended to text via concatenation.

You might also want to do exception handling.

edited Oct 22, 2017 at 10:14

answered Oct 22, 2017 at 9:54

J...S

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5 Comments

UKcodeNovice Over a year ago

for i in range(6): text += file.readline #this works, thank you

UKcodeNovice Over a year ago

Actually, that is repeating in each iteration like you say, I just want it to print 5 lines in one go then stop, I later want to print the next 5 lines and stop again. Any idea?

J...S Over a year ago

@UKcodeNovice What do you want to do after reading the lines? Would it be okay to make the lines as a list?

UKcodeNovice Over a year ago

I want to ask a question about the lines

J...S Over a year ago

@UKcodeNovice Have a look at islice from itertools package. But even that is a form of loop it seems.

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