我相信内存映射文件将是最快的解决方案。我尝试了四个函数:由OP发布的函数(opcount);对文件中的行进行简单迭代(simplecount);带有内存映射字段(mmap)的Readline (mapcount);以及Mykola Kharechko (buffcount)提供的缓冲区读取解决方案。

我将每个函数运行五次，并计算出120万在线文本文件的平均运行时间。

Windows XP, Python 2.5, 2GB RAM, 2ghz AMD处理器

以下是我的结果:

mapcount : 0.465599966049
simplecount : 0.756399965286
bufcount : 0.546800041199
opcount : 0.718600034714

编辑:Python 2.6的数字:

mapcount : 0.471799945831
simplecount : 0.634400033951
bufcount : 0.468800067902
opcount : 0.602999973297

因此，对于Windows/Python 2.6，缓冲区读取策略似乎是最快的

代码如下:

from __future__ import with_statement
import time
import mmap
import random
from collections import defaultdict

def mapcount(filename):
    f = open(filename, "r+")
    buf = mmap.mmap(f.fileno(), 0)
    lines = 0
    readline = buf.readline
    while readline():
        lines += 1
    return lines

def simplecount(filename):
    lines = 0
    for line in open(filename):
        lines += 1
    return lines

def bufcount(filename):
    f = open(filename)                  
    lines = 0
    buf_size = 1024 * 1024
    read_f = f.read # loop optimization

    buf = read_f(buf_size)
    while buf:
        lines += buf.count('\n')
        buf = read_f(buf_size)

    return lines

def opcount(fname):
    with open(fname) as f:
        for i, l in enumerate(f):
            pass
    return i + 1


counts = defaultdict(list)

for i in range(5):
    for func in [mapcount, simplecount, bufcount, opcount]:
        start_time = time.time()
        assert func("big_file.txt") == 1209138
        counts[func].append(time.time() - start_time)

for key, vals in counts.items():
    print key.__name__, ":", sum(vals) / float(len(vals))

计数= max(开放(文件))[0]

没有比这更好的了。

毕竟，任何解决方案都必须读取整个文件，计算出有多少\n，并返回结果。

在不读取整个文件的情况下，你有更好的方法吗?不确定……最好的解决方案总是I/ o受限，你能做的最好的就是确保不使用不必要的内存，但看起来你已经覆盖了这个问题。

已经有很多答案了，但不幸的是，它们中的大多数只是一个几乎不可优化的问题上的微型经济……

在我参与的几个项目中，行数是软件的核心功能，以最快的速度处理大量文件是至关重要的。

行数的主要瓶颈是I/O访问，因为您需要读取每一行以检测行返回字符，因此没有其他方法。第二个潜在的瓶颈是内存管理:一次加载的内存越多，处理的速度就越快，但与第一个瓶颈相比，这个瓶颈可以忽略不计。

因此，除了禁用gc收集和其他微管理技巧等微小优化外，还有3种主要方法可以减少行计数函数的处理时间:

Hardware solution: the major and most obvious way is non-programmatic: buy a very fast SSD/flash hard drive. By far, this is how you can get the biggest speed boosts. Data preparation solution: if you generate or can modify how the files you process are generated, or if it's acceptable that you can pre-process them, first convert the line return to unix style (\n) as this will save 1 character compared to Windows or MacOS styles (not a big save but it's an easy gain), and secondly and most importantly, you can potentially write lines of fixed length. If you need variable length, you can always pad smaller lines. This way, you can calculate instantly the number of lines from the total filesize, which is much faster to access. Often, the best solution to a problem is to pre-process it so that it better fits your end purpose. Parallelization + hardware solution: if you can buy multiple hard disks (and if possible SSD flash disks), then you can even go beyond the speed of one disk by leveraging parallelization, by storing your files in a balanced way (easiest is to balance by total size) among disks, and then read in parallel from all those disks. Then, you can expect to get a multiplier boost in proportion with the number of disks you have. If buying multiple disks is not an option for you, then parallelization likely won't help (except if your disk has multiple reading headers like some professional-grade disks, but even then the disk's internal cache memory and PCB circuitry will likely be a bottleneck and prevent you from fully using all heads in parallel, plus you have to devise a specific code for this hard drive you'll use because you need to know the exact cluster mapping so that you store your files on clusters under different heads, and so that you can read them with different heads after). Indeed, it's commonly known that sequential reading is almost always faster than random reading, and parallelization on a single disk will have a performance more similar to random reading than sequential reading (you can test your hard drive speed in both aspects using CrystalDiskMark for example).

如果这些都不是选择，那么你只能依靠微观管理技巧来提高行数函数的速度，但不要指望有什么真正重要的东西。相反，您可以预期，与您将看到的速度改进回报相比，您花费在调整上的时间将是不均衡的。

凯尔的回答

num_lines = sum(1 for line in open('my_file.txt'))

最好的替代方案是什么

num_lines =  len(open('my_file.txt').read().splitlines())

这里是两者的性能比较

In [20]: timeit sum(1 for line in open('Charts.ipynb'))
100000 loops, best of 3: 9.79 µs per loop

In [21]: timeit len(open('Charts.ipynb').read().splitlines())
100000 loops, best of 3: 12 µs per loop

def line_count(path):
    count = 0
    with open(path) as lines:
        for count, l in enumerate(lines, start=1):
            pass
    return count