How to read /dev/random in python

Question

I read in a book that /dev/random is like an infinite file, but when I set up the following codes to see what the content look like, it prints nothing.

Answer 1

It is outputting random bytes, not random lines. You see nothing until you get a newline, which will only happen every 256 bytes on average. The reason /dev/urandom appears to work is simply that it operates faster. Wait longer, read less, or use /dev/urandom.

Answer 2

FWIW, the preferred way of accessing this stream (or something like it) in a semi-portable way is os.urandom()

Answer 3

with open("/dev/random", 'rb') as f:
    print repr(f.read(10))