Zeilenweise

Zeilenweise is a German adverb meaning line by line or row-wise. It is formed from Zeile (line) and the suffix -weise (in the manner of). The term is used to describe actions performed on a per-line basis, such as reading, processing, or evaluating lines of text or data sequentially.

In everyday usage, zeilenweise specifies how text or data should be handled. For example, die Datei wird zeilenweise gelesen means the file is read line by line, and zeilenweise Verarbeitung describes processing that happens per line rather than on the entire file at once.

In computing, zeilenweise processing is common for large files or streams because it minimizes memory usage and supports streaming architectures. Typical patterns include opening a text file and reading one line at a time, applying a transformation or filter to each line, and emitting results incrementally. Programming languages provide concrete constructs for this: in Python, iterating over a file object; in Java, using BufferedReader.readLine; in shell scripting, processing with a while read loop.

Related terms include spaltenweise, meaning column-wise, used to describe operations performed by columns rather than by rows. The distinction between zeilenweise and spaltenweise processing is important in data analysis, databases, and numerical computing, where per-row versus per-column strategies influence memory usage and performance. The concept also intersects with row-major and column-major ordering in data structures, depending on how data is laid out and accessed.

See also line-oriented I/O, streaming, row-wise processing, and column-wise processing.