Use StringIO module to read string

                                      
import string# from   ww w .j a va 2  s.c  o  m

contents = "<data><ref id='bit'><para>0</para><para>1</para></ref></data>" 
import StringIO 
ssock = StringIO.StringIO(contents)          
print ssock.read()                                      
print ssock.read()                                     
print ssock.seek(0)                                      
print ssock.read(15)                                       
print ssock.read(15) 
print ssock.read() 
ssock.close()