Optional size argument for readline()

[Sworddragon]

BPO	15449
Nosy	@pitrou

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = <Date 2012-07-25.20:35:31.971>
created_at = <Date 2012-07-25.20:15:47.709>
labels = ['type-feature', 'library']
title = 'Optional size argument for readline()'
updated_at = <Date 2012-07-25.20:35:31.970>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/Sworddragon'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2012-07-25.20:35:31.970>
actor = 'pitrou'
assignee = 'none'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2012-07-25.20:35:31.971>
closer = 'pitrou'
components = ['Library (Lib)']
creation = <Date 2012-07-25.20:15:47.709>
creator = 'Sworddragon'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 15449
keywords = []
message_count = 2.0
messages = ['166422', '166424']
nosy_count = 2.0
nosy_names = ['pitrou', 'Sworddragon']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'works for me'
stage = None
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = 'enhancement'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue15449'
versions = ['Python 3.2']

[Sworddragon]

For file objects the read() function has the optional size argument to limit the data that will be read. I'm wondering why there isn't such an argument for readline(). Theoretically lines in a file could have million of characters and even much more. An optional limit could prevent that a high amount of data will be load into the memory.

[pitrou]

Well, it does:
http://docs.python.org/dev/library/io.html#io.IOBase.readline

“readline(limit=-1)

Read and return one line from the stream. If limit is specified, at most limit bytes will be read.”