Copying a buffered stream in Python

August 10, 2020

How can you copy a stream to another stream when using a buffer?

This example shows two string buffers. By using the methods read and write, the stream is copied between stream_source and stream_target.

The example uses the size parameter to read a buffer of 4 bytes each time.

import io

buffer_size = 4
stream_source = io.StringIO("0123456789")
stream_target = io.StringIO()

while True:
    text = stream_source.read(buffer_size)
    if text == "":  # read after EOF returns an empty string
        print("EOF")
        break
    else:
        print(f"read {len(text)} bytes ({text})")
        stream_target.write(text)

print("target stream size", stream_target.tell())
stream_target.seek(0)
print("target stream contents", stream_target.read())

# todo: close streams or use with

Output:

read 4 bytes (0123)
read 4 bytes (4567)
read 2 bytes (89)
EOF
target stream size 10
target stream contents 0123456789

Written by Loek van den Ouweland on August 10, 2020. Questions regarding this artice? You can send them to the address below.