Reading from File
There are three ways to read data from a text file.
- read(): Returns the read bytes in form of a string. Reads n bytes, if no n specified, reads the entire file.
File_object.read([n])
- readline(): Reads a line of the file and returns in form of a string.For specified n, reads at most n bytes. However, does not reads more than one line, even if n exceeds the length of the line.
File_object.readline([n])
- readlines(): Reads all the lines and return them as each line a string element in a list.
File_object.readlines()
Note: ‘\n’ is treated as a special character of two bytes.
Python3
# Program to show various ways to # read data from a file. # Creating a file file1 = open("myfile.txt", "w") L = ["This is Delhi \n", "This is Paris \n", "This is London \n"] # Writing data to a file file1.write("Hello \n") file1.writelines(L) file1.close() # to change file access modes file1 = open("myfile.txt", "r+") print("Output of Read function is ") print(file1.read()) print() # seek(n) takes the file handle to the nth # byte from the beginning. file1.seek(0) print("Output of Readline function is ") print(file1.readline()) print() file1.seek(0) # To show difference between read and readline print("Output of Read(9) function is ") print(file1.read(9)) print() file1.seek(0) print("Output of Readline(9) function is ") print(file1.readline(9)) print() file1.seek(0) # readlines function print("Output of Readlines function is ") print(file1.readlines()) print() file1.close() |
Output:
Output of Read function is Hello This is Delhi This is Paris This is London Output of Readline function is Hello Output of Read(9) function is Hello Th Output of Readline(9) function is Hello Output of Readlines function is ['Hello \n', 'This is Delhi \n', 'This is Paris \n', 'This is London \n']
Note: To know more about reading from file click here.
Interact with files in Python
Python too supports file handling and allows users to handle files i.e., to read, write, create, delete and move files, along with many other file handling options, to operate on files. The concept of file handling has stretched over various other languages, but the implementation is either complicated or lengthy, but alike other concepts of Python, this concept here is also easy and short. The main focus of this article will be on the following topics.
- Creating a file
- Reading from file
- Writing to file
- Moving file
- Deleting a file