Reading Files
Chapter 7
Software What
It is time to go find some
Next? Data to mess with!
Input Central
and Output Processing Files R
Devices Unit Us
Secondary
if x < 3: print Memory
Memory Return-Path: <
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Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 09:12:18 -0500To:
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[email protected]: [sakai] svn commit: r39772 -
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view=rev&rev=39772
...
File Processing
A text file can be thought of as a sequence of lines
From
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Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 09:12:18 -0500
To:
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Details: http://source.sakaiproject.org/viewsvn/?view=rev&rev=39772
http://www.py4e.com/code/mbox-short.txt
Opening a File
• Before we can read the contents of the file, we must tell Python
which file we are going to work with and what we will be doing
with the file
• This is done with the open() function
• open() returns a “file handle” - a variable used to perform
operations on the file
• Similar to “File -> Open” in a Word Processor
Using open()
fhand = open('mbox.txt', 'r')
• handle = open(filename, mode)
• returns a handle use to manipulate the file
• filename is a string
• mode is optional and should be 'r' if we are planning to
read the file and 'w' if we are going to write to the file
What is a Handle?
>>> fhand = open('mbox.txt')
>>> print(fhand)
<_io.TextIOWrapper name='mbox.txt' mode='r' encoding='UTF-8'>
When Files are Missing
>>> fhand = open('stuff.txt')
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'stuff.txt'
The newline Character
>>> stuff = 'Hello\nWorld!'
>>> stuff
• We use a special character 'Hello\nWorld!'
called the “newline” to indicate >>> print(stuff)
when a line ends Hello
World!
• We represent it as \n in strings >>> stuff = 'X\nY'
>>> print(stuff)
X
• Newline is still one character -
Y
not two >>> len(stuff)
3
File Processing
A text file can be thought of as a sequence of lines
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Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 09:12:18 -0500
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Details: http://source.sakaiproject.org/viewsvn/?view=rev&rev=39772
File Processing
A text file has newlines at the end of each line
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Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 09:12:18 -0500\n
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From:
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Subject: [sakai] svn commit: r39772 - content/branches/\n
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Reading Files in Python
File Handle as a Sequence
• A file handle open for read can
be treated as a sequence of
strings where each line in the xfile = open('mbox.txt')
file is a string in the sequence for cheese in xfile:
print(cheese)
• We can use the for statement
to iterate through a sequence
• Remember - a sequence is an
ordered set
Counting Lines in a File
fhand = open('mbox.txt')
• Open a file read-only count = 0
for line in fhand:
• Use a for loop to read each line count = count + 1
print('Line Count:', count)
• Count the lines and print out
the number of lines
$ python open.py
Line Count: 132045
Reading the *Whole* File
>>> fhand = open('mbox-short.txt')
We can read the whole >>> inp = fhand.read()
file (newlines and all) >>> print(len(inp))
into a single string 94626
>>> print(inp[:20])
From stephen.marquar
Searching Through a File
We can put an if statement in fhand = open('mbox-short.txt')
for line in fhand:
our for loop to only print lines
if line.startswith('From:') :
that meet some criteria print(line)
OOPS!
From:
[email protected]What are all these blank
lines doing here? From:
[email protected] From: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
...
OOPS!
What are all these blank From: [email protected]\n
lines doing here? \n
From: [email protected]\n
• Each line from the file \n
has a newline at the end From: [email protected]\n
\n
• The print statement adds From: [email protected]\n
a newline to each line \n
...
Searching Through a File (fixed)
fhand = open('mbox-short.txt')
• We can strip the whitespace for line in fhand:
from the right-hand side of line = line.rstrip()
if line.startswith('From:') :
the string using rstrip() from print(line)
the string library
From: [email protected]
• The newline is considered
From: [email protected]
“white space” and is From: [email protected]
stripped From: [email protected]
....
Skipping with continue
fhand = open('mbox-short.txt')
We can conveniently for line in fhand:
skip a line by using the line = line.rstrip()
if not line.startswith('From:') :
continue statement continue
print(line)
Using in to Select Lines
fhand = open('mbox-short.txt')
We can look for a string for line in fhand:
anywhere in a line as our line = line.rstrip()
if not '@uct.ac.za' in line :
selection criteria continue
print(line)
X-Authentication-Warning: set sender to
[email protected] using –f
From:
[email protected]Author:
[email protected]From
[email protected] Fri Jan 4 07:02:32 2008
X-Authentication-Warning: set sender to
[email protected] using -f...
fname = input('Enter the file name: ')
fhand = open(fname)
count = 0
Prompt for
for line in fhand:
if line.startswith('Subject:') :
count = count + 1
File Name
print('There were', count, 'subject lines in', fname)
Enter the file name: mbox.txt
There were 1797 subject lines in mbox.txt
Enter the file name: mbox-short.txt
There were 27 subject lines in mbox-short.txt
fname = input('Enter the file name: ')
try:
Bad File fhand = open(fname)
except:
print('File cannot be opened:', fname)
Names quit()
count = 0
for line in fhand:
if line.startswith('Subject:') :
count = count + 1
print('There were', count, 'subject lines in', fname)
Enter the file name: mbox.txt
There were 1797 subject lines in mbox.txt
Enter the file name: na na boo boo
File cannot be opened: na na boo boo
Summary
• Secondary storage • Searching for lines
• Opening a file - file handle • Reading file names
• File structure - newline character • Dealing with bad files
• Reading a file line by line with a
for loop
