Welcome to the lesson on Python File Open

Open a File on the Server

Let's say we have this text file, located in the same folder as lesson resources folder:

To open the file, use the built-in open() function.

The open() function returns a file object, which has a read() method for reading the content of the file:

Example:

If the file is located in a different location, you will have to specify the file path, like this:

Example:

Read Only Parts of the File

By default the read() method returns the whole text, but you can also specify how many characters you want to return:

Example: Return the first 5 characters of the file:

You can return one line by using the readline() method:

Example: Read one line of the file:

By calling readline() two times, you can read the two first lines:

Example: Read two lines of the file:

By looping through the lines of the file, you can read the whole file, line by line:

Example: Loop through the file line by line:

It is a good practice to always close the file when you are done with it.

Example: Close the file when you are finish with it:

You should always close your files, in some cases, due to buffering, changes made to a file may not show until you close the file.

You have learned File Open in simple terms. Let's proceed on to Next Topic.