iterable-io

What it is and what it does

iterable-io bridges a common interface mismatch: when one part of your code has a generator or other iterable producing data, but another part expects a file-like object with a `.read()` method. Rather than materializing the entire iterable into a temporary file (which is slow and memory-intensive), this library streams data on demand, pulling from the iterable as `.read()` is called.

The package exports a single function, `open_iterable()`, designed to mimic Python's builtin `open()`. It accepts an iterable, a mode string ('rb', 'rt', etc.), and optional parameters like encoding and buffering, returning a file-like object. This is useful for gluing together incompatible APIs—for example, when a library expects a file handle but your data comes from a generator of bytes or lines.

Use it for:

• Adapt a generator of bytes to feed into a library that requires a file-like object (e.g., image processing, archive extraction).
• Stream text data line-by-line from a generator without materializing the full dataset into memory.
• Convert network streams or database result iterators into file-like interfaces for downstream processing.
• Avoid temporary file creation when bridging APIs that produce and consume data differently.
• Read compressed or encoded data from a generator while handling text-mode decoding transparently.

Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying

Wraps iterables (generators, lists, etc.) as file-like objects so code expecting `.read()` can consume streaming data without buffering to disk.

Yes. The package solves a real interface-adaptation problem with zero dependencies, low install friction, active maintenance, and no known vulnerabilities. The copyleft license (LGPL-3.0-only) is straightforward for most use cases but requires review if you plan to modify or redistribute the code. Install it when you need to feed an iterable into code expecting a file-like object.

Install

iterable-io on PyPI

pip install iterable-io

uv add iterable-io

poetry add iterable-io

Installing iterable-io

Before you install

No runtime dependencies and a pure-Python wheel distribution make installation straightforward. The package is actively maintained with a recent release.

License in practice

Licensed under LGPL-3.0-only (copyleft). Any derivative work or modification must be distributed under the same license; static linking or bundling requires careful attention to license compliance.

Quickstart

pip install iterable-io

from iterable_io import open_iterable

gen = (b'chunk' for _ in range(3))
fp = open_iterable(gen, 'rb')
data = fp.read(4096)
fp.close()

Verify before relying

• Whether the library handles all edge cases for text-mode encoding/decoding (e.g., multi-byte character boundaries across chunk boundaries).
• Performance characteristics when iterables produce very small chunks or very large chunks.
• Whether buffering options (if any) are configurable beyond what the docstring documents.

Package facts

Evidence: iterable_io-1.0.4-py3-none-any.whl

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