Home

Learning Hub

Articles

File Handling in Python – How to Create, Open, Append, Read, Write, & Close

File handling is an important part of any programming language. Python offers several functions for handling files, such
as opening, reading, creating, writing, closing, or deleting them. In this article, we will discuss file handling in
Python.

What is File Handling in Python Language?

File handling is the ability to work with files on a computer’s file system using Python programming language. It involves
various operations on the file, such as creating a file, reading, writing, appending and closing the file. Python
provides built-in functions and methods before those file operations efficiently.

File Handling Functions

The most commonly used file-handling functions are open(), read() and write(). The following table describes some common
file-handling functions in the Python language.

Here is the table:

Opening a File in Python

There is the open() function in  Python language for opening a file. The basic syntax of a file in
Python language.

Syntax

The open() function takes two parameters.

• File_name: This parameter includes the file extension with its current working. If the file
  location is elsewhere, then provide the absolute or relative path.
• Mode: This is an optional parameter that defines the file opening method. The following table
  describes possible options that can be passed.

Mode parameter table options:

Let’s open a file opening using the open() method

Filename: file.txt

Hello Neeraj Kumar, How are you

Program

Output

Reading a File in Python

To read a file in Python language, the file must first be opened in the read mode. Python language offers several
methods of reading. If you want a read-only first line, use readline(), and if you want to read all the lines, use
redlines (). If you want to read a few characters of the file. Use the read(size) method. This method read() is used to
read all the content at a time.

The following program demonstrates the reading of a file in Python:

Filename: file.txt

Hello Neeraj Kumar, How are you

Hello, Buddy, I am a software engineer

Program

Output

Creating Files in Python

To create a new file, you have to pass ‘w’ in the second parameter in the open function in Python. The following program
demonstrates how to create a file in Python.

Progarm

We can use the append method, which means appending something to a file. The ‘a’ mode allows you to open a file and
append content to it.

The following program appends a new at the end of the file.

Output

New Line

Closing the Files in Python

It is a good practice to close a file after work is completed in your specific file.  There is a close() function. That
can be used for closing a file

To close a file,  run the close() method on the file object.

The following program demonstrates the close method example:

Program

Deleting Files in Python

Removing files in Python requires establishing communication with the operating system. There is an OS library that
has a remove() method that we can use to delete a file.

The following program demonstrates the deletion of files in Python language.

Program

Conclusion

In this article, we learned about file handling in the Python language. File handling is very essential for various data
manipulation tasks. Understanding file handling in Python is essential for various data manipulation tasks. By
understanding basic operations like creating, opening, reading, writing, appending, and closing files, developers can
efficiently manage external data sources, ensuring robustness and reliability.