Can python read up to where a certain pattern is matched?

[Josiah Carlson]

> That, and I suspect that reading strings in chunks, rather than 1 byte at a
> time, would be much faster also.

Yes and no.  string.find(character) is fast.

seq = [read_chars.find(i) for i in break_characters]
min(filter(lambda inp:inp>-1, seq)+[-1])

May not be quite so fast for large numbers of break characters.
  - Josiah