$ python
Python 2.5.2 (r252:60911, Dec 2 2008, 09:26:14)
[GCC 3.4.4 (cygming special, gdc 0.12, using dmd 0.125)] on cygwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
'read'
, 'readinto', 're
adline', 'readlines', 'seek', 'softspace', 'tell', 'truncate', 'write', 'writeli
nes', 'xreadlines']
stdin.read
help(stdin.read)
Help on built-in function read:
read(...)
read([size]) -> read at most size bytes, returned as a string.
If the size argument is negative or omitted, read until EOF is reached.
Notice that when in non-blocking mode, less data than what was requested
may be returned, even if no size parameter was given.
The function is documented in my first edition of Programming Python which is copyright 1996. I believe the function has been there since at least Python 1.0. There are other ways to read input - know which function does what and figure out which one you really want.