Skip first couple of lines while reading lines in Python file

python file lines skip

O.rka · Mar 6, 2012 · Viewed 142.4k times · Source

I want to skip the first 17 lines while reading a text file.

Let's say the file looks like:

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
good stuff

I just want the good stuff. What I'm doing is a lot more complicated, but this is the part I'm having trouble with.

Answer

Use a slice, like below:

with open('yourfile.txt') as f:
    lines_after_17 = f.readlines()[17:]

If the file is too big to load in memory:

with open('yourfile.txt') as f:
    for _ in range(17):
        next(f)
    for line in f:
        # do stuff