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Thu Jul 21 11:09:46 HKT 2005

The instruction of readlines
readlines(...)
 |      readlines([size]) -> list of strings, each a line from the file.
 |
 |      Call readline() repeatedly and return a list of the lines so read.
 |      The optional size argument, if given, is an approximate bound on the
 |      total number of bytes in the lines returned.

What does size argument mean?I don't understand.

readlines function:

-    def readlines(self, sizehint=0):
+    def readlines(self, size=-1):
+        """readlines([size]) -> list of strings, each a line from the file.
+
+Call readline() repeatedly and return a list of the lines so read.
+The optional size argument, if given, is an approximate bound on the
+total number of bytes in the lines returned."""
         if self._closed:
             raise ValueError('I/O operation on closed file')
-        return list(iter(self.stream.readline, ""))
+        if size < 0:
+            return list(iter(self.stream.readline, ""))
+        else:
+            result = []
+            while size > 0:
+                line = self.stream.readline()
+                if not line:
+                    break
+                result.append(line)
+                size -= len(line)
+            return result

why does my result does match with it?
for example:
f.readlines(1) returns ['111111','222222222','3333333','44444444'...
...].(don't list all)
f.readlines(1000) returns only 68 lines.
why? Help me please.

标题：[python-chinese] help about readlines