File Handling
File Handling
File handling is an important aspect of programming in Python, as it allows you to read from and write to files on your computer. In Python, file handling can be done using built-in functions and methods.
Here is an overview of the basic file handling operations in Python:
Opening a file: To open a file in Python, you can use the open() function. This function takes two arguments: the first is the name of the file you want to open, and the second is the mode in which you want to open the file.
There are several modes in which you can open a file, including:
- ‘r’: Read mode (default)
- ‘w’: Write mode
- ‘a’: Append mode
- ‘x’: Exclusive creation mode
- ‘b’: Binary mode
For example, to open a file named “example.txt” in read mode, you can use the following code:
file = open("example.txt", "r")
Reading from a file: To read from a file, you can use the read() method. This method reads the entire contents of the file and returns them as a string.
For example:
file = open("example.txt", "r")
content = file.read()
print(content)
Reading from a file: To read from a file, you can use the read() method. This method reads the entire contents of the file and returns them as a string.
For example:
file = open("example.txt", "r")
content = file.read()
print(content)
This code will open the file “example.txt”, read its contents, and print them to the console.
Writing to a file: To write to a file, you can use the write() method. This method writes a string to the file.
For example:
file = open("example.txt", "w")
file.write("This is an example sentence.")
file.close()
This code will open the file “example.txt” in write mode, write the string “This is an example sentence.” to the file, and then close the file.
Closing a file: After you have finished working with a file, it is important to close it using the close() method. This ensures that any changes you have made to the file are saved and that the file is released from memory.
For example:
file = open("example.txt", "r")
content = file.read()
file.close()
This code will open the file “example.txt” in read mode, read its contents, and then close the file.