如果您有一个非常大的文件，并假设您希望输出为numpy数组，则使用np。Genfromtxt将冻结您的计算机。以我的经验来看，这样好多了:

def load_big_file(fname,maxrows):
'''only works for well-formed text file of space-separated doubles'''

rows = []  # unknown number of lines, so use list

with open(fname) as f:
    j=0        
    for line in f:
        if j==maxrows:
            break
        else:
            line = [float(s) for s in line.split()]
            rows.append(np.array(line, dtype = np.double))
            j+=1
return np.vstack(rows)  # convert list of vectors to array

如果您有一个非常大的文件，并假设您希望输出为numpy数组，则使用np。Genfromtxt将冻结您的计算机。以我的经验来看，这样好多了:

def load_big_file(fname,maxrows):
'''only works for well-formed text file of space-separated doubles'''

rows = []  # unknown number of lines, so use list

with open(fname) as f:
    j=0        
    for line in f:
        if j==maxrows:
            break
        else:
            line = [float(s) for s in line.split()]
            rows.append(np.array(line, dtype = np.double))
            j+=1
return np.vstack(rows)  # convert list of vectors to array

fname = input("Enter file name: ")
num_lines = 0

with open(fname, 'r') as f: #lines count
    for line in f:
        num_lines += 1

num_lines_input = int (input("Enter line numbers: "))

if num_lines_input <= num_lines:
    f = open(fname, "r")
    for x in range(num_lines_input):
        a = f.readline()
        print(a)

else:
    f = open(fname, "r")
    for x in range(num_lines_input):
        a = f.readline()
        print(a)
        print("Don't have", num_lines_input, " lines print as much as you can")


print("Total lines in the text",num_lines)

基于gnibbler的投票结果(2009年11月20日0:27):这个类将head()和tail()方法添加到文件对象。

class File(file):
    def head(self, lines_2find=1):
        self.seek(0)                            #Rewind file
        return [self.next() for x in xrange(lines_2find)]

    def tail(self, lines_2find=1):  
        self.seek(0, 2)                         #go to end of file
        bytes_in_file = self.tell()             
        lines_found, total_bytes_scanned = 0, 0
        while (lines_2find+1 > lines_found and
               bytes_in_file > total_bytes_scanned): 
            byte_block = min(1024, bytes_in_file-total_bytes_scanned)
            self.seek(-(byte_block+total_bytes_scanned), 2)
            total_bytes_scanned += byte_block
            lines_found += self.read(1024).count('\n')
        self.seek(-total_bytes_scanned, 2)
        line_list = list(self.readlines())
        return line_list[-lines_2find:]

用法:

f = File('path/to/file', 'r')
f.head(3)
f.tail(3)

这适用于Python 2和3:

from itertools import islice

with open('/tmp/filename.txt') as inf:
    for line in islice(inf, N, N+M):
        print(line)

对于前5行，简单地做:

N=5
with open("data_file", "r") as file:
    for i in range(N):
       print file.next()