Develop Reference

Python File opening syntax

In Python 2.7, what is the difference between the two statements:
f = open("file_name", "r")
f = open("file_name").read()
I know both are opening a file, but is first opening the file in read mode and the latter is opening the file and then reading it?

The first will return an open file object in read mode.
The second will return the contents of an open file object in read mode.

f = open("file_name", "r")
f = open("file_name").read()
The second is same as writing f = open("file_name", 'r').read().
As per python documentation the mode is an optional parameter to open(). If it is not specified, the file is open in read mode.
The first argument is a string containing the filename. The second
argument is another string containing a few characters describing the
way in which the file will be used. mode can be 'r' when the file will
only be read, 'w' for only writing (an existing file with the same
name will be erased), and 'a' opens the file for appending; any data
written to the file is automatically added to the end. 'r+' opens the
file for both reading and writing. The mode argument is optional; 'r'
will be assumed if it’s omitted.

Why does my text file keep overwriting the data on it?

I'm trying to pull some data from Facebook pages for a product and dump it all into a text file, but I find that the file keeps overwriting itself with the data. I'm not sure if it's a pagination issue or if I have to make several files.
Here's my code:
#Modules
import requests
import facebook
import json
def some_action(post):
print posts['data']
print post['created_time']
#Token
access_token = 'INSERT ACCESS TOKEN'
user = 'walkers'
#Posts
graph = facebook.GraphAPI(access_token)
profile = graph.get_object(user)
posts = graph.get_connections(profile['id'], 'posts')
#Write
while True:
posts = requests.get(posts['paging']['next']).json()
#print posts
with open('test121.txt', 'w') as outfile:
json.dump(posts, outfile)
Any idea as to why this is happening?

w overwrites, open with a to append or open the file once outside the loop:
append:
while True:
posts = requests.get(posts['paging']['next']).json()
#print posts
with open('test121.txt', 'a') as outfile:
json.dump(posts, outfile)
Open once outside the loop:
with open('test121.txt', 'w') as outfile:
while True:
posts = requests.get(posts['paging']['next']).json()
#print posts
json.dump(posts, outfile)
It makes more sense to use the second option, if you are going to be running the code multiple times then you can open with a outside the loop also, if the file does not exist it will be created, if it does data will be appended

This is because you are using the file operator with w mode, you are overwriting the content. You can use the a append mode:
It can be done like this
Modification:
with open('test121.txt', 'w') as outfile:
while True:
posts = requests.get(posts['paging']['next']).json()
json.dump(posts, outfile)
w overwrites on the existing file
i.e)
File1.txt:
123
code:
with open("File1.txt","w") as oup1:
oup1.write("2")
File1.txt after python run:
2
Its value is overwritten
a appends to the existing file
i.e)
File1.txt:
123
code:
with open("File1.txt","a") as oup1:
oup1.write("2")
File1.txt after python run:
1232
The written content is appended to the end.

Opening and Closing Files
to use actual data files reading and writing to the standard input and output.
Python provides basic functions and methods necessary to manipulate files by default. You can do your most of the file manipulation using a file object.
The open Function
Before you can read or write a file, you have to open it using Python's built-in open() function. This function creates a file object, which would be utilized to call other support methods associated with it.
Syntax
file object = open(file_name [, access_mode][, buffering])
Here are parameter details:
file_name: The file_name argument is a string value that contains the name of the file that you want to access.
access_mode: The access_mode determines the mode in which the file has to be opened, i.e., read, write, append, etc. A complete list of possible values is given below in the table. This is optional parameter and the default file access mode is read (r).
buffering: If the buffering value is set to 0, no buffering takes place. If the buffering value is 1, line buffering is performed while accessing a file. If you specify the buffering value as an integer greater than 1, then buffering action is performed with the indicated buffer size. If negative, the buffer size is the system default(default behavior).
Here is a list of the different modes of opening a file −
Modes and Description
r= Opens a file for reading only. The file pointer is placed at the beginning of the file. This is the default mode.
rb= Opens a file for reading only in binary format. The file pointer is placed at the beginning of the file. This is the default mode.
r+= Opens a file for both reading and writing. The file pointer placed at the beginning of the file.
rb+= Opens a file for both reading and writing in binary format. The file pointer placed at the beginning of the file.
w= Opens a file for writing only. Overwrites the file if the file exists. If the file does not exist, creates a new file for writing.
wb= Opens a file for writing only in binary format. Overwrites the file if the file exists. If the file does not exist, creates a new file for writing.
w+= Opens a file for both writing and reading. Overwrites the existing file if the file exists. If the file does not exist, creates a new file for reading and writing.
wb+= Opens a file for both writing and reading in binary format. Overwrites the existing file if the file exists. If the file does not exist, creates a new file for reading and writing.
a= Opens a file for appending. The file pointer is at the end of the file if the file exists. That is, the file is in the append mode. If the file does not exist, it creates a new file for writing.
ab= Opens a file for appending in binary format. The file pointer is at the end of the file if the file exists. That is, the file is in the append mode. If the file does not exist, it creates a new file for writing.
a+= Opens a file for both appending and reading. The file pointer is at the end of the file if the file exists. The file opens in the append mode. If the file does not exist, it creates a new file for reading and writing.
ab+= Opens a file for both appending and reading in binary format. The file pointer is at the end of the file if the file exists. The file opens in the append mode. If the file does not exist, it creates a new file for reading and writing.
Reading and Writing Files
The file object provides a set of access methods to make our lives easie with the use of read() and write() methods to read and write files.
The write() Method
The write() method writes any string to an open file. It is important to note that Python strings can have binary data and not just text.
The write() method does not add a newline character ('\n') to the end of the string −
Syntax
fileObject.write(string);
Here, passed parameter is the content to be written into the opened file.
Example
# Open a file
fo = open("file.txt", "wb")
fo.write( "Python is a great language");
# Closeopend file
fo.close()
The above method would create foo.txt file and would write given content in that file and finally it would close that file. If you would open this file, it would have following content.
Python is a great language.
The read() Method
The read() method reads a string from an open file. It is important to note that Python strings can have binary data. apart from text data.
Syntax
fileObject.read([count]);
Here, passed parameter is the number of bytes to be read from the opened file. This method starts reading from the beginning of the file and if count is missing, then it tries to read as much as possible, maybe until the end of file.
Example
Let's take a file foo.txt, which we created above.
# Open a file
fo = open("foo.txt", "r+")
str = fo.read(10);
print "Read String is : ", str
# Close opend file
fo.close()
This produces the following result −
Read String is : Python is

How to delete a line from a file in Python

I tried to use this: Deleting a line from a file in Python. I changed the code a bit to suit my purposes, like so:
def deleteLine():
f=open("cata.testprog","w+")
content=f.readlines()
outp = []
print(f.readline())
for lines in f:
print(lines)
if(lines[:4]!="0002"):
#if the first four characters of a line do not equal
outp.append(lines)
print(outp)
f.writelines(outp)
f.close()
The problem is that the entire file gets replaced by an empty string and outp is equal to an empty list. My file is not empty, and I want to delete the line that begins with "0002". Printing f.readline() gave me an empty string. Does anyone have any idea of how to fix it?
Thanks in advance,

You changed the file handling completely compared to the linked question. There, the file is first opened to read the content, closed and then opened to write the processed content. Here you open it and you first use f.readlines(), so all the data of the file is in content and the file pointer is at the end of the file.

You have opened file in wrong mode: "w+". This mode is used for writing and reading, but at first it is truncated. At first open file for reading. If it is not huge file read it into memory, convert there and save it by opening file in write mode.

What is the difference between opening and reading a file in python?

In python's OS module there is a method to open a file and a method to read a file.
The docs for the open method say:
Open the file file and set various flags according to flags and
possibly its mode according to mode. The default mode is 0777 (octal),
and the current umask value is first masked out. Return the file
descriptor for the newly opened file.
The docs for the read method say;
Read at most n bytes from file descriptor fd. Return a string
containing the bytes read. If the end of the file referred to by fd
has been reached, an empty string is returned.
I understand what it means to read n bytes from a file. But how does this differ from open?

"Opening" a file doesn't actually bring any of the data from the file into your program. It just prepares the file for reading (or writing), so when your program is ready to read the contents of the file it can do so right away.

Opening a file allows you to read or write to it (depending on the flag you pass as the second argument), whereas reading it actually pulls the data from a file that is typcially saved into a variable for processing or printed as output.
You do not always read from a file once it is opened. Opening also allows you to write to a file, either by overwriting all the contents or appending to the contents.
To read from a file:
>>> myfile = open('foo.txt', 'r')
>>> myfile.read()
First you open the file with read permission (r)
Then you read() from the file
To write to a file:
>>> myfile = open('foo.txt', 'r')
>>> myfile.write('I am writing to foo.txt')
The only thing that is being done in line 1 of each of these examples is opening the file. It is not until we actually read() from the file that anything is changed

open gets you a fd (file descriptor), you can read from that fd later.
One may also open a file for other purpose, say write to a file.

It seems to me you can read lines from the file handle without invoking the read method but I guess read() truly puts the data in the variable location. In my course we seem to be printing lines, counting lines, and adding numbers from lines without using read().
The rstrip() method needs to be used, however, because printing the line from the file handle using a for in statement also prints the invisible line break symbol at the end of the line, as does the print statement.
From Python for Everybody by Charles Severance, this is the starter code.
"""
7.2
Write a program that prompts for a file name,
then opens that file and reads through the file,
looking for lines of the form:
X-DSPAM-Confidence: 0.8475
Count these lines and extract the floating point
values from each of the lines and compute the
average of those values and produce an output as
shown below. Do not use the sum() function or a
variable named sum in your solution.
You can download the sample data at
http://www.py4e.com/code3/mbox-short.txt when you
are testing below enter mbox-short.txt as the file name.
"""
# Use the file name mbox-short.txt as the file name
fname = input("Enter file name: ")
fh = open(fname)
for line in fh:
if not line.startswith("X-DSPAM-Confidence:") :
continue
print(line)
print("Done")

Ideal way to read, process then write a file in python

There are a lot of files, for each of them I need to read the text content, do some processing of the text, then write the text back (replacing the old content).
I know I can first open the files as rt to read and process the content, and then close and reopen them as wt, but obviously this is not a good way. Can I just open a file once to read and write? How?

See: http://docs.python.org/2/library/functions.html#open
The most commonly-used values of mode are 'r' for reading, 'w' for writing (truncating the file if it already exists), and 'a' for appending (which on some Unix systems means that all writes append to the end of the file regardless of the current seek position). If mode is omitted, it defaults to 'r'. The default is to use text mode, which may convert '\n' characters to a platform-specific representation on writing and back on reading. Thus, when opening a binary file, you should append 'b' to the mode value to open the file in binary mode, which will improve portability. (Appending 'b' is useful even on systems that don’t treat binary and text files differently, where it serves as documentation.) See below for more possible values of mode.
Modes 'r+', 'w+' and 'a+' open the file for updating (note that 'w+' truncates the file). Append 'b' to the mode to open the file in binary mode, on systems that differentiate between binary and text files; on systems that don’t have this distinction, adding the 'b' has no effect.
So, you can open a file in mode r+, read from it, truncate, then write to the same file object. But you shouldn't do that.
You should open the file in read mode, write to a temporary file, then os.rename the temporary file to overwrite the original file. This way, your actions are atomic; if something goes wrong during the write step (for example, it gets interrupted), you don't end up having lost the original file, and having only partially written out your replacement text.

Check out the fileinput module. It lets you do what others are advising: back up the input file, manipulate its contents, and then write the altered data to the same place.
Optional in-place filtering: if the keyword argument inplace=True is passed to fileinput.input() or to the FileInput constructor, the file is moved to a backup file and standard output is directed to the input file (if a file of the same name as the backup file already exists, it will be replaced silently). This makes it possible to write a filter that rewrites its input file in place.
Here's an example. Say I have a text file like:
1
2
3
4
I can do (Python 3):
import fileinput
file_path = r"C:\temp\fileinput_test.txt"
with fileinput.FileInput(files=[file_path], inplace=True) as input_data:
for line in input_data:
# Double the number on each line
s = str(int(line.strip()) * 2)
print(s)
And my file becomes:
2
4
6
8

You can use the 'r+' file mode to open a file for reading and writing at the same time.
example:
with open("file.txt", 'r+') as filehandle:
# can read and write to file here

well, you can choose the "r+w" mode, with which you need only open the file once