title: How to determine 'word' size in Python
body: <p>I need to know the number of bytes in a 'word' in Python. The reason I need this is I have the number of words I need to read from a file; if I knew the number of bytes in a word, I can use the <code>file.read(num_bytes)</code> function to read the appropriate amount from the file.</p>
  
  <p>How can I determine the number of bytes in a word?</p>