如果文件能放进内存，那么

with open(fname) as f:
    count = len(f.read().split(b'\n')) - 1

print open('file.txt', 'r').read().count("\n") + 1

这个呢

def file_len(fname):
  counts = itertools.count()
  with open(fname) as f: 
    for _ in f: counts.next()
  return counts.next()

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

我修改了缓冲区的情况如下:

def CountLines(filename):
    f = open(filename)
    try:
        lines = 1
        buf_size = 1024 * 1024
        read_f = f.read # loop optimization
        buf = read_f(buf_size)

        # Empty file
        if not buf:
            return 0

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

        return lines
    finally:
        f.close()

现在空文件和最后一行(不带\n)也被计算在内。

与此答案类似的一行bash解决方案，使用了现代子进程。check_output功能:

def line_count(filename):
    return int(subprocess.check_output(['wc', '-l', filename]).split()[0])