Logo

Developer learning path

News
Python

Opening and Closing Files in Python

Introduction
Setting Up Your Python Environment
Installing Python and PyCharm IDE Creating and Running Your First Python Program
Python Data Types
Numeric Types String Types Boolean Types None Type
Operators and Expressions
Arithmetic Operators Comparison Operators Logical Operators Bitwise Operators Assignment Operators Operator Precedence
Control Flow Statements
Conditional Statements Loops Break and Continue Statements Exception Handling
Functions and Modules
Defining and Calling Functions Function Arguments and Return Values Lambda Functions Modules and Packages
Python Data Structures
Lists Tuples Dictionaries Sets Arrays
ObjectOriented Programming in Python
Classes and Objects Attributes and Methods Inheritance and Polymorphism Abstract Classes and Interfaces
File Handling
Opening and Closing Files Reading and Writing Text Files Reading and Writing Binary Files CSV Files
Regular Expressions
Basic Regular Expressions and Metacharacters Anchors and Quantifiers Grouping and Capturing Lookarounds
Datetime and Timezones
Date and Time Objects Date and Time Formatting Timezone and Daylight Saving Time Handling
Debugging and Testing
Debugging Techniques Debugging Tools in PyCharm Unit Testing with PyTest
Web Scraping with Python
Requesting Data with urllib Parsing HTML with Beautiful Soup Extracting and Storing Data
Database Handling with Python
Connecting to Databases Performing CRUD Operations Database Access with ORM (ObjectRelational Mapping)
Introduction to Data Science with Python
NumPy Pandas Matplotlib ScikitLearn
GUI Programming with Python
Creating GUI Applications GUI Toolkits (Tkinter, PyQt, wxWidgets)
Network Programming with Python
Socket Programming Creating and Running a Simple Web Server Connecting to APIs
Best Practices and Tips
Python Coding Standards Code Organization Writing Efficient Code Tips and Tricks for Python Development
Conclusion and Next Steps.

Opening and Closing Files

100

#description

In Python, we can open and work with files using the built-in open() function. The open() function takes two arguments - the name of the file you want to open (including the file path if it is not in the same directory as your Python script), and the mode in which you want to open the file.

The mode can be one of the following:
  • "r": read-only mode (default)
  • "w": write mode, which will overwrite the file if it already exists
  • "a": append mode, which will add new data to the end of the file
  • "x": exclusive creation mode, which will create a new file but will raise an error if the file already exists
  • "b": binary mode, which is used when working with binary data like images, audio or video files

Once you have opened a file, you can read its contents using the read() method, or you can iterate over the lines of the file using a for loop. You can also write data to a file using the write() method, or append data to an existing file using the append() method.

After you have finished working with a file, it is important to close the file using the close() method. This is because Python keeps the file open until it is closed or the program exits, which could lead to data inconsistencies or even data loss.

Here is an example of opening a file in read mode, reading its contents, and then closing the file:

 
                    
file = open("example.txt", "r")   # open the file in read mode
contents = file.read()           # read the contents of the file
print(contents)                  # print the contents to the console
file.close()                     # close the file

March 25, 2023

If you don't quite understand a paragraph in the lecture, just click on it and you can ask questions about it.

If you don't understand the whole question, click on the buttons below to get a new version of the explanation, practical examples, or to critique the question itself.