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1:mod:`linecache` --- Random access to text lines
2================================================
3
4.. module:: linecache
5   :synopsis: Provides random access to individual lines from text files.
6
7.. sectionauthor:: Moshe Zadka <moshez@zadka.site.co.il>
8
9**Source code:** :source:`Lib/linecache.py`
10
11--------------
12
13The :mod:`linecache` module allows one to get any line from a Python source file, while
14attempting to optimize internally, using a cache, the common case where many
15lines are read from a single file.  This is used by the :mod:`traceback` module
16to retrieve source lines for inclusion in  the formatted traceback.
17
18The :func:`tokenize.open` function is used to open files. This
19function uses :func:`tokenize.detect_encoding` to get the encoding of the
20file; in the absence of an encoding token, the file encoding defaults to UTF-8.
21
22The :mod:`linecache` module defines the following functions:
23
24
25.. function:: getline(filename, lineno, module_globals=None)
26
27   Get line *lineno* from file named *filename*. This function will never raise an
28   exception --- it will return ``''`` on errors (the terminating newline character
29   will be included for lines that are found).
30
31   .. index:: triple: module; search; path
32
33   If a file named *filename* is not found, the function first checks
34   for a :pep:`302` ``__loader__`` in *module_globals*.
35   If there is such a loader and it defines a ``get_source`` method,
36   then that determines the source lines
37   (if ``get_source()`` returns ``None``, then ``''`` is returned).
38   Finally, if *filename* is a relative filename,
39   it is looked up relative to the entries in the module search path, ``sys.path``.
40
41
42.. function:: clearcache()
43
44   Clear the cache.  Use this function if you no longer need lines from files
45   previously read using :func:`getline`.
46
47
48.. function:: checkcache(filename=None)
49
50   Check the cache for validity.  Use this function if files in the cache  may have
51   changed on disk, and you require the updated version.  If *filename* is omitted,
52   it will check all the entries in the cache.
53
54.. function:: lazycache(filename, module_globals)
55
56   Capture enough detail about a non-file-based module to permit getting its
57   lines later via :func:`getline` even if *module_globals* is ``None`` in the later
58   call. This avoids doing I/O until a line is actually needed, without having
59   to carry the module globals around indefinitely.
60
61   .. versionadded:: 3.5
62
63Example::
64
65   >>> import linecache
66   >>> linecache.getline(linecache.__file__, 8)
67   'import sys\n'
68