in place input

[andy]

i'm working on an python application with intensive i/o.

file.read() and its cousins all allocate and return a new string.

I want to know if there is a way in which I can provide the space on which the
data is going to be put, in order to recycle memory, instead of allocating it
each time again and again.

thanks

 

[Peter Otten]

i'm working on an python application with intensive i/o.

file.read() and its cousins all allocate and return a new string.

I want to know if there is a way in which I can provide the space on which
the data is going to be put, in order to recycle memory, instead of
allocating it each time again and again.

The following may do:

import array
file("tmp.txt", "w").write("x" * 5)
buf = array.array("c")
buf.fromstring("-" * 10)
print buf
file("tmp.txt", "r").readinto(buf)
print buf

However, file.readinto() has a frightening docstring:

Peter