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Introduction

To interact with any type of file, we first need to know a bit about some general functions. open(file, mode='r',...)is the first, and is used to open a file. Using the parameter mode, we can here choose how the file is to be opened, as well as what we are able to do with it. The following table is taken from docs.python.org.

CharacterMeaning
'r'open for reading (default)
'w'open for writing, truncating1 the file first
'x'open for exclusive creation, failing if the file already exists
'a'open for writing, appending to the end of the file if it exists
'b'binary mode
't'text mode (default)
'+'open for updating (reading and writing)

1Means removing the file contents without deleting the file.

It is also important to close the file after we are done with it, which we will show in the following examples. If you are unsure why it is important to close the file, please have a look at this post on Stack Overflow discussing the topic.

Close file - Method 1 
# Open the file "input" for reading
fid = open('input.txt', 'r')

# Read the file as wanted...

# Close the file using the .close()-method
fid.close()

# We can verify that the file is closed using the bool .closed
print(fid.closed)		# This will print "True"
Close file - Method 2 
try:		# Try to open the file "input" for reading
	fid = open('input.txt', 'r')
	# Read the file as wanted...
except:		# If an exception is triggered during the try-block
	print('Something went wrong when reading to the file')
finally:	# Make sure the file is closed independent of an exception or not
	fid.close()

# We can verify that the file is closed using the bool .closed
print(fid.closed)		# This will print "True"

Textfile [.txt]

Textf


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