METU Computer Engineering

CEng 240 – Spring 2021

Week 11
Sinan Kalkan

File Handling

Disclaimer: Figures without reference are from either from “Introduction to programming concepts
with case studies in Python” or “Programming with Python for Engineers”, which are both co-authored
by me.
 This Week
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¢ File Handling
§ Files and sequential access
§ Parsing
§ Termination of input
§ Formatting files
§ Binary files

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 First Example
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fpointer = open('firstexample.txt', "w")

fpointer.write("hello\n")
fpointer.write("how are\n")
fpointer.write("you?\n")
fpointer.close()

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 Files and Sequential Access
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fp = open("firstexample.txt","r") # the example file we created above

for i in range(3): # repeat 3 times

content = fp.read(4) # read 4 bytes in each step
print("> ", content) # output 4 bytes preceded by >

fp.close()

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 Parsing
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instr = '10.0 5.0 5.0’

outlst = []

# Go over each substring

for substr in instr.split(' ‘):
outlst += [float(substr)]
# Convert each element to float and append it to the list

OR: outlst = [ float(substr) for substr in instr.split(' ')]

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 Opening/closing files
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¢ Opening files:
§ open(filename, “r”) => open file for reading
§ open(filename, “w”) => open file for writing
§ open(filename, “a”) => open file for appending

¢ Closing file:
§ fileobject.close()

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 Accessing Files Line by Line
METU Computer Engineering

pointlist = [(0,0), (10,0), (10,10), (0,10)]

fp = open("pointlist.txt", "w") # open file for writing

fp.write(str(len(pointlist))) # write list length
fp.write('\n’)

# Go over each point in the list

for (x,y) in pointlist: # for each x,y value in the list
fp.write(str(x)) # write x
fp.write(' ') # space as number separator
fp.write(str(y)) # write y
fp.write('\n') # \n as line separator
Produces file
fp.close() with content:

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 Accessing Files Line by Line
METU Computer Engineering

Read file with content:

fp = open("pointlist.txt") # open file for reading

nextline = fp.readline() # read the first line

while nextline != '': # while read is successful
print(nextline) # output the line
nextline = fp.readline() # read the nextline

fp.close() # when nextline == '' loop terminates

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 Termination of input
METU Computer Engineering

¢ There are two ways to stop reading input:

1. By reading a definite number of items.
§ Call read() or readline() functions for a fixed number of times.
2. By the end of the file.
§ Continue to read() or readline() until they return empty string ‘’.

fp = open("pointlist.txt") # open file for reading

nextline = fp.readline() # read the first line

while nextline != '': # until end of file
... # Do something with the read line
nextline = fp.readline() # read the next line

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 Termination of input
METU Computer Engineering

¢ We can also use our own special “marker”

File contents:
30
3.4 2.1
5.1 3.2
EOLIST
1 1.5
2.0 2.5

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 Binary Files
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¢ A text file is human readable.

§ Each number is represented by the characters of the digits.
§ “3.1415926535897932384626433832795028” occupies 34
characters/bytes.
¢ Content of a binary file is directly the binary representation of
data
§ Number 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028 occupies 4 bytes
on a 32-bit computer.
§ But the file is not human-readable.
¢ Opening binary files: open(filename, ‘rb’) or open(filename,
‘wb’)
¢ struct module should be used for creating and interpreting
bytes
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 Examples
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¢ Read a CSV file

¢ Dice game exercise:

https://pp4e-workbook.github.io/chapters/file_handling/dice_game.html

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 Final Words:
Important Concepts
METU Computer Engineering

¢ Sequential access. File access.

¢ Text files. Reading and writing text files.
Parsing a text file.
¢ End of file, new line.
¢ Formatting files.
¢ Binary files and binary file access.

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METU Computer Engineering

THAT’S ALL FOLKS!

STAY HEALTHY

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