how to read a long multiline string line by line in python

by splitting with newlines.

for line in wallop_of_a_string_with_many_lines.split('\n'):
  #do_something..

if you iterate over a string, you are iterating char by char in that string, not by line.

>>>string = 'abc'
>>>for line in string:
    print line

a
b
c

What about using .splitlines()?

for line in textData.splitlines():
    print(line)
    lineResult = libLAPFF.parseLine(line)

This answer fails in a couple of edge cases (see comments). The accepted solution above will handle these. str.splitlines() is the way to go. I will leave this answer nevertheless as reference.

Old (incorrect) answer:

s =  \
"""line1
line2
line3
"""

lines = s.split('\n')
print(lines)
for line in lines:
    print(line)