WHY DO WE NEED FILE HANDLING?

▪ Files are used to store data

permanently
 FILE
▪ A file is a bunch of bytes stored on some
storage device

▪ Devices like hard disk, thumb drive etc.

▪ Can be stored permanently and can be
retrieved
 TYPES OF FILES

TEXT FILE

BINARY FILE

CSV FILE
 TEXT FILES
▪ Stores information in ASCII or Unicode characters
▪ Each line of text is terminated with a special
character known as EOL – End Of Line character
(‘\n’, ‘\r \n’)
▪ Internal translations take place when EOL is read
or written
▪ Extension for text files is .txt
▪ Default mode of file
 TEXT FILE

REGULAR TEXT DELIMITED TEXT

FILE FILE

TSV FILE CSV FILE

 BINARY FILES
▪ Sores information in the form of a stream of bytes

▪ Contains information in the same format in which

the information is held in memory

▪ No delimiter for a line

▪ No translations required

▪ Faster and easier than text files

▪ More secure
 CSV FILES

▪ Comma Separated Values (CSV) file

▪ Simple file in human readable format

▪ Used to store tabular data in plain text

▪ Delimiter is usually a comma

▪ Easy to generate and import onto a spreadsheet or

database
TEXT FILE VS BINARY
 STEPS IN FILE HANDLING
First open the file for read or write by
Opening File specifying the name of file and mode

Read / Write Once the file is opened, can either

read or write

Closing File Close the file after performing the operation

 BASIC FILE MANIPULATION

Create Add Delete

Update Search

‫ ﷺ‬Reading data from files

File Operations ‫ ﷺ‬Writing data to files

‫ ﷺ‬Appending data to files

 OPENING A TEXT FILE

<file_objectname> = open(<filename>)
OR
<file_objectname> = open(<filename>, <mode>)

File object Name / Path

Mode of a File
created to a File
 OPENING A TEXT FILE - EXAMPLE
f = open(“Apple.txt”, ”r”)
• Here “Apple.txt” is loaded in memory and its
reference is linked to ‘f’ object.

• Python will access “Bike.txt” through ‘f’ object

• The file is opened in read mode

File object is also known as File handle

ACCESSING A FILE IN DIFFERENT LOCATION
f = open(“d:\\main\\story.txt”, ”r”)
• Opens file “story.txt” and attaches it to the file object f

• The slashes in the path must be doubled

F = open(r“d:\mydata\poem.txt”,”r”)
• Another solution of double backslash is using “r” before the
path making the string as raw string
i.e. no special meaning attached to any character
OPENING FILES
• The default file-open mode is read mode

• If mode is not specified, Python will open in read mode

• When you open a file in read mode, the given file must
exist in the folder, otherwise Python will raise
FileNotFoundError
FILE ACCESS MODES
File must exist already, otherwise Python
‘r’ Read Only raises I/O errors

• If the file does not exist, file is created.

‘w’ Write Only • If the file exists, Python will truncate existing
data and overwrite the file

• New data will be added to the end of

‘a’ Append existing data, no overwriting
• If file does not exist, Python will create a
new file
 • File must exists otherwise error is raised
‘r+’ Read and Write • Both reading and writing can take place

• File is created if not exists

‘w+’ Write and Read • If exists data will be truncated
• Both read and write allowed

• File is created if not exists

‘a+’ Append and • If exists data is retained; new data is
Read appended
• Both read and write allowed
CLOSING A FILE
An opened file is closed by calling the close() method

Syntax: <fileHandle>.close()

Example: f.close()
READING FROM FILES

‫ ﷺ‬read()

‫ ﷺ‬readline()

‫ ﷺ‬readlines()
CREATING A TEXT FILE
1
Open any text editor,
and type any content

2 3
Copy the path from Save your file in the
where your python is path which is copied
installed with .txt extension
read()
Syntax: <fileHandle>.read([n])

• Reads at most n bytes

• If no n is specified, reads the entire file

• Reads the bytes in the form of a string

 Reading a file’s entire content f.read()

Code Snippet:

Output →
 f.read(n)
Reading a file’s first 30 bytes and printing it.

 Code Snippet

Output →
Reading n bytes and then reading some more
bytes from the last position read.

 Code Snippet

Output →
 readline()
Syntax:
<fileHandle>.readline([n])
• Reads a line of input

• If n is specified, reads at most n bytes

• Returns a blank string if no more bytes are left

for reading in the file

• Reads the bytes in the form of a string

Reading a file’s first line

Code Snippet:
Output:
 Reading a file’s first three lines – line by line

Code Snippet:

Output:
 Reading a file’s first three lines – line by line

Code Snippet:

Output:
 Reading a file using readline(n)

Code Snippet:

Output:
 Reading a complete file line by line

Code Snippet: Output:

 Reading a file line by line using for loop
Output:
Code Snippet:
 Reading a file line by line using for loop
Output:
Code Snippet:
Displaying the size of a file after removing EOL
characters, white spaces & blank lines
Code Snippet: Output:
readlines()
Syntax: <fileHandle>.readlines()

• Reads all lines

• Returns them in a list

 Reading a complete file in a list

Code Snippet →

Output:
 Program to display the size of a file in bytes

Code Snippet:

Output:
 Program to display the number of lines in a file

Code Snippet:

Output:
WRITING ONTO FILES
‫ ﷺ‬write()

‫ ﷺ‬writelines()

• If file doesn’t exists, it will create a new file

• If file exists, it will write the data into the file

 write()
Syntax: <fileHandle>.write(str)
• write() method takes a string and writes it in the file

• For storing data, with EOL character, we have to add ‘\n’

character to the end of the string

• For storing numeric value, we have to either convert it into

string using str() or write in quotes
writelines(seq)
Syntax:
<fileHandle>.writelines(L)

writelines() method is used to write sequence

data types in a file (string, list.)
APPENDING DATA TO A FILE
• Append means to add the data at the end of file
using ‘a’ mode

• If file does not exists, it will create the new file

• If file exists, it will append/add the data at the

end
of the file
Create a text file to hold some data

Code Snippet →

Output →
Create a text file to hold some data

Code Snippet →

Output →
 Create a text file to hold student names
Code Snippet :

Input : Text File :

 Create a text file to hold student names in different lines

Code Snippet :

Input : Text File :

 Create a file with some names separated by newline characters
without using write() function
Code Snippet :

Text File :
Input :
Create a file with some names separated by newline characters
without using write() function

Input : Text File :

Program to get roll numbers, names and marks of the students
of a class and store these details in a file called ‘Marls.txt’

Code Snippet :
Input :

Text File :
Program to add two more students details to the file Marks.txt
created earlier

Code Snippet :
Input : Text File :
Program to display the contents of file ‘Marks.txt’ which is
created earlier

Code Snippet : Output:

OR
 Program to read a text file line by line and display each
word separated by a ‘#’

Code Snippet : Output:

 Program to read a text file line by line and display the counts
of vowels and consonants in the file.

Code Snippet : Output: