Built-in Mathematica Symbol

ReadList

ReadList["file"]
reads all the remaining expressions in a file, and returns a list of them.

ReadList["file", type]
reads objects of the specified type from a file, until the end of the file is reached. The list of objects read is returned.

ReadList["file", {type₁, type₂, ...}]
reads objects with a sequence of types, until the end of the file is reached.

ReadList["file", types, n]
reads only the first n objects of the specified types.

	Byte	single byte, returned as an integer code
	Character	single character, returned as a one-character string
	Expression	complete Mathematica expression
	Number	integer or an approximate number, given in "E" format
	Real	approximate number, given in "E" format
	Record	sequence of characters delimited by record separators
	String	string terminated by a newline
	Word	sequence of characters delimited by word separators

Objects of type Real can be given in the scientific notation format used by languages such as C and Fortran, as well as in standard Mathematica format. A form like 2.e5 or 2E5 as well as 2*^5 can be used to represent the number . Objects read as type Real are always returned as approximate numbers. Objects read as type Number are returned as integers if they contain no explicit decimal points.

NullRecords	False	whether to assume a null record between repeated record separators
NullWords	False	whether to assume a null word between repeated word separators
RecordSeparators	{"\r\n","\n","\r"}	separators allowed between records
RecordLists	False	create separate sublists for each record
TokenWords	{}	words taken as delimiters
WordSeparators	{" ","\t"}	separators allowed between words

If file is not already open for reading, ReadList opens it, then closes it when it is finished. If the file is already open, ReadList does not close it at the end.

ReadList prints a message if any of the objects remaining in the file are not of the specified types.

ReadList["file", {type₁, ...}] looks for the sequence of type_i in order. If the end of file is reached while part way through the sequence of type_i, EndOfFile is returned in place of the elements in the sequence that have not yet been read.