[Numpy-discussion] savetxt to a string?

[Neal Becker]

Peter wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 1:53 PM, Neal Becker <ndbecker2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Peter wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 1:08 PM, Neal Becker <ndbecker2 at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Is the formatting of savetxt available with a string as the
>>>> destination?
>>>>
>>>> If not, shouldn't this functionality be factored out of savetxt?
>>>>
>>>
>>> Have you tried using a StringIO handle?
>>>
>>> Peter
>>
>> Yup.  But wouldn't it be cleaner to factor out this functionality and
>> make saving to a file use this?
> 
> I doubt it.
> 
> I would think from a code point of view no - taking filenames or handles
> means you can write everything using handle.write(...) statements, and
> send the data to disk (or a StringIO handle) gradually. This scales well
> with large data.
> 
> If you wanted a single code base to support filenames, handles, or
> output as a string I think you'd be forced to build a large string in
> memory, and then (if applicable) write it to disk (in one go). This
> won't scale well with large data.
> 
> Peter

Good point.