Regex on a huge text

[Terry Reedy]

Medardo Rodriguez wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 11:24 AM, Dan <redalastor at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm looking on how to apply a regex on a pretty huge input text (a file
>> that's a couple of gigabytes). I found finditer which would return results
>> iteratively which is good but it looks like I still need to send a string
>> which would be bigger than my RAM. Is there a way to apply a regex directly
>> on a file?
>>
>> Any help would be appreciated.
> 
> 
> You can call *grep* posix utility.

Does not grep only work a line at a time?  Just like the code below?

> But if the regex's matches are possible only inner the context of a
> line of that file:
> #<code>
> res = []
> with file(filename) as f:
>     for line in f:
>         res.extend(getmatches(regex, line))
> #  Of course "getmatches" describes the concept.
> #</code>
> 
> Regards
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>