what happens when the file begin read is too big for all lines to be read with "readlines()"

[Xiao Jianfeng]

Steven D'Aprano wrote:

>On Sun, 20 Nov 2005 11:05:53 +0800, Xiao Jianfeng wrote:
>
>  
>
>> I have some other questions:
>>
>> when "fh" will be closed?
>>    
>>
>
>When all references to the file are no longer in scope:
>
>def handle_file(name):
>    fp = file(name, "r")
>    # reference to file now in scope
>    do_stuff(fp)
>    return fp
>
>
>f = handle_file("myfile.txt)
># reference to file is now in scope
>f = None
># reference to file is no longer in scope
>
>At this point, Python *may* close the file. CPython currently closes the
>file as soon as all references are out of scope. JPython does not -- it
>will close the file eventually, but you can't guarantee when.
>
>  
>
>> And what shoud I do if I want to explicitly close the file immediately 
>>after reading all data I want?
>>    
>>
>
>That is the best practice.
>
>f.close()
>
>
>  
>
 Let me introduce my problem I came across last night first.

 I need to read a file(which may be small or very big) and to check line 
by line
 to find a specific token, then the data on the next line will be what I 
want.
 
 If I use readlines(), it will be a problem when the file is too big.

 If I use "for line in OPENED_FILE:" to read one line each time, how can 
I get
 the next line when I find the specific token?
 And I think reading one line each time is less efficient, am I right?

 
 Regards,

 xiaojf