io.lines

Opens the given file name in read mode and returns an iterator function that, each time it is called, returns a new line from the file. Therefore, the construction

  for line in io.lines(filename) do body end

io.lines Function
Syntax io.lines( filepath : string )
Returns	function iterator
API	io
Source	CC:Tweaked

will iterate over all lines of the file. When the iterator function detects the end of file, it returns nil (to finish the loop) and automatically closes the file.

The call io.lines() (with no file name) is equivalent to io.input():lines(); that is, it iterates over the lines of the default input file. In this case it does not close the file when the loop ends.

ExampleIterate over lines
Iterates the lines of a file.
Code	for line in io.lines(filename) do print(line) end