Think of scalability. Your file will grow. Slowly or quickly depends on your situation.

Program for the future.

I dislike reading in a 'small' file into RAM, because one day (when I'm on vacation?) that file will be really big. I dislike doing anything that relies upon any assumptions made on input data. Cause input data is unreliable in it's nature.

f--k the world!!!!
/dev/world has reached maximal mount count, check forced.