Working With Python Files
Python is a widely used programming language. It can be used for system scripting, web development and software design.
The with statement makes it easy to open files in Python. It also takes care of closing the file.
A python file is a contiguous set of byte data, converted into 1s and 0s for easier processing by the interpreter. It can contain text or binary data.
What is a file?
A file is a container in the computer system that stores information, settings or commands that are used with a program. These files are usually represented as icons in the graphical user interface, and when you click on them, they open in a particular program that is installed on your system.
Python supports different types of file handling through built-in methods, including opening and closing files. It also provides ways to read and write to files dynamically.
To open a file in Python, you must first specify the mode of access to the file. This is done by providing the letter ‘r’ or ‘w’ to the open() function, along with the file name. The ‘r’ mode opens the file for reading, while the ‘w’ mode opens it for writing content and creates a new file if the file does not exist. Append mode appends data to an existing file, positioning the pointer at the end of the file.
Open a file for reading
If you are working with text files, the most common way to read them is to use the open() function. This returns a handle to the file and makes all its methods available. You can then invoke the read() method to return a line of text from the file. It is recommended to close the file when done to avoid wasting memory and resources.
There are also different access modes for writing to a file. The default mode is write (‘w’). This allows you to push data into the file. The append and read (‘a+’) mode puts the handle at the end of the existing file and the new data will be inserted after the previous content.
When appending to a file, it is best to pass strings. Non-string values will raise a TypeError. The write() and writelines() methods accept lists of strings. Both functions also take an optional encoding parameter to ensure that the string data is formatted correctly on all platforms.
Open a file for writing
The open() function creates a file object which you can then use for reading and writing. You should always close a file when you are done. This frees up memory and other resources and also ensures that other software can access it without a problem.
You can read a text file by using the read() method on the file object. You can write to a file by using the write() and writelines() methods.
There are many ways to handle files in Python, including append only mode “a”, write-and-read mode with truncation (“w+”) and binary read/write mode “rb”. For this article the most useful mode is the ‘r’ which allows you to pull information from the file. When you open a file for writing with the ‘w’ mode, whatever exists in the existing file gets overwritten or a new file gets created. If the file does not exist, an error is raised. You can also pass an encoding to the open() function to have Python interpret your data in unicode.
Close a file
It is a good practice to close files after using them. This helps to prevent memory leaks and potential data corruption. It also frees up system resources. In addition, closing a file properly ensures that any write operations are flushed to disk. This is important, as it can prevent a program from crashing or leaving files open after it has exited.
If you use the with statement with the open function, it will automatically close the file for you. However, this is not a reliable solution because the with statement is not guaranteed to be executed. It could be interrupted by an exception, or the interpreter could be terminated.
The close() method is an alternative to the with statement. It takes a single argument, the file object, and does not return any value. This method should be called when the file is no longer needed, and any attempt to read or write the closed file will raise a ValueError.