PYTHON READ AND WRITING FILES

Nkugwa Mark William
2 min readFeb 7, 2023

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Python provides several ways to read and write files. Here’s a brief summary with examples:

Reading Files

  1. open() function: The most basic way to read a file is using the built-in open() function. The syntax is:
f = open("file.txt", "r")
content = f.read()
f.close()

2. with statement: A more pythonic way to read a file is using the with statement, which automatically closes the file for you. The syntax is:

with open("file.txt", "r") as f:
content = f.read()

3. readline() method: To read a file line by line, you can use the readline() method. The syntax is:

with open("file.txt", "r") as f:
line = f.readline()
while line:
# process the line
line = f.readline()

4. for loop: Another way to read a file line by line is using a for loop. The syntax is:

with open("file.txt", "r") as f:
for line in f:
# process the line

Writing Files

  1. open() function: To write to a file, you can open it in write mode ("w") or append mode ("a"). The syntax for writing to a file is:
f = open("file.txt", "w")
f.write("Hello, world!")
f.close()

2. with statement: The with statement can also be used for writing to a file. The syntax is:

with open("file.txt", "w") as f:
f.write("Hello, world!")

3. write() method with multiple lines: To write multiple lines to a file, use the write() method with newline characters (\n). For example:

with open("file.txt", "w") as f:
f.write("Line 1\n")
f.write("Line 2\n")
f.write("Line 3\n")

4. writelines() method with a list of strings: To write a list of strings to a file, use the writelines() method. For example:

lines = ["Line 1\n", "Line 2\n", "Line 3\n"]
with open("file.txt", "w") as f:
f.writelines(lines)

These are the basics of reading and writing files in Python.

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Nkugwa Mark William
Nkugwa Mark William

Written by Nkugwa Mark William

Nkugwa Mark William is a Chemical and Process engineer , entrepreneur, software engineer and a technologists with Apps on google play store and e commerce sites

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