[Python-ideas] Is there a reason why file.readlines() doesn't/can't return an iterator?

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Peter Otten writes:
 > Éric Araujo wrote:
 > 
 > > Okay.  You can open a report on bugs.python.org to ask that the doc for
 > > readlines mention list(fp) as an alternative.
 > 
 > That would make sense to me only if readlines() were deprecated.

It makes sense to me.  Something like

    Note that "for line in fp:" (to iterate over the lines of the
    file) and "list(fp)" (to get a list of all lines in a file) are
    idiomatic Python.

to remind readers (especially new users) of the iterator concept,
which is even today not so familiar to beginning programmers.