UNIT IV

FILE HANDLING
 File

A file is a collection of data stored on a secondary storage device like hard disk. A file is basically

used because real-life applications involve large amounts of data and in such situations the console

oriented I/O operations pose two major problems:

• First, it becomes cumbersome and time consuming to handle huge amount of data through

terminals.

• Second, when doing I/O using terminal, the entire data is lost when either the program is

terminated or computer is turned off. Therefore, it becomes necessary to store data on a permanent

storage (the disks) and read whenever necessary, without destroying the data.

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 File Path

Files that we use are stored on a storage medium like the

hard disk in such a way that they can be easily retrieved as
and when required.
Every file is identified by its path that begins from the root
node or the root folder. In Windows, C:\ (also known as C
drive) is the root folder but you can also have a path that
starts from other drives like D:\, E:\, etc. The file path is also
known as pathname.
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 Relative Path and Absolute Path
 A file path can be either relative or absolute. While an absolute
path always contains the root and the complete directory list
to specify the exact location the file,
 relative path needs to be combined with another path in
order to access a file. It starts with respect to the current
working directory and therefore lacks the leading slashes.
 For example, C:\Students\Under Graduate\BTech_CS.docx
but Under Graduate\BTech_CS.docx is a relative path as
only a part of the complete path is specified.
ASCII TEXT FILES
 A text file is a stream of characters that can be sequentially
processed by a computer in forward direction. For this
reason a text file is usually opened for only one kind of
operation (reading, writing, or appending) at any given time.
 Because text files can process characters, they can only read
or write data one character at a time. In Python, a text stream
is treated as a special kind of file.
 Depending on the requirements of the operating system and on the

operation that has to be performed (read/write operation) on the file,

the newline characters may be converted to or from
carriage-return/linefeed combinations.

 Besides this, other character conversions may also be done to satisfy the

storage requirements of the operating system. However, these

conversions occur transparently to process a text file. In a text file, each
line contains zero or more characters and ends with one or more
characters
 Another important thing is that when a text file is used, there
are actually two representations of data- internal or external.
 For example, an integer value will be represented as a
number that occupies 2 or 4 bytes of memory internally but
externally the integer value will be represented as a string of
characters representing its decimal or hexadecimal value.
 Binary Files

• A binary file is a file which may contain any type of data, encoded in
binary form for computer storage and processing purposes.
• It includes files such as word processing documents, PDFs, images,
spreadsheets, videos, zip files and other executable programs.
• Like a text file, a binary file is a collection of bytes. A binary file is also
referred to as a character stream with following two essential
differences.
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BINARY FILES
• A binary file does not require any special processing of the data
and each byte of data is transferred to or from the disk
unprocessed.

• Python places no constructs on the file, and it may be read

from, or written to, in any manner the programmer wants.

While text files can be processed sequentially, binary files, on the

other hand, can be either processed sequentially or randomly
depending on the needs of the application.
 The Open() Function
Before reading from or writing to a file, you must first open it using Python’s built-in open() function.
This function creates a file object, which will be used to invoke methods associated with it. The syntax
of open() is:
fileObj = open(file_name [, access_mode])
Here,
file_name is a string value that specifies name of the file that you want to access.
access_mode indicates the mode in which the file has to be opened, i.e., read, write, append, etc.

Example:

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The open() Function – Access Modes

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 The File Object Attributes

Once a file is successfully opened, a file object is returned. Using this file object,
you can easily access different type of information related to that file. This
information can be obtained by reading values of specific attributes of the file.

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 The close () Method
• The close() method is used to close the file object. Once a file object
is closed, you cannot further read from or write into the file
associated with the file object.
• While closing the file object the close() flushes any unwritten
information. Although, Python automatically closes a file when the
reference object of a file is reassigned to another file, but as a good
programming habit you should always explicitly use the close()
method to close a file. The syntax of close() is fileObj.close()
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 The close() method frees up any system resources such as file

descriptors, file locks, etc. that are associated with the file. Moreover,
there is an upper limit to the number of files a program can open. If that
limit is exceeded then the program may even crash or work in
unexpected manner. Thus, you can waste lots of memory if you keep
many files open unnecessarily and also remember that open files
always stand a chance of corruption and data loss.

 Once the file is closed using the close() method, any attempt to use

the file object will result in an error.

 The write() and writelines() Methods

• The write() method is used to write a string to an already opened file.

• This string may include numbers, special characters or other symbols.
While writing data to a file, you must remember that the write()
method does not add a newline character ('\n') to the end of the
string. The syntax of write() method is:
fileObj.write(string)
• The writelines() method is used to write a list of strings.
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TRYING TO WRITE IN READ MODE
TRYING TO WRITE DATA IN R+ MODE
WRITING DATA INTO FILE
 append() Method

• Once you have stored some data in a file, you can always open that file again to
write more data or append data to it.
• To append a file, you must open it using 'a' or 'ab' mode depending on whether it
is a text file or a binary file. Note that if you open a file in 'w' or 'wb' mode and
then start writing data into it, then its existing contents would be overwritten. So
always open the file in 'a' or 'ab' mode to add more data to existing data stored in
the file.
• Appending data is especially essential when creating a log of events or combining
a large set of data into one file.
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APPEND
APPEND VS WRITE
 The read() and readline() Methods

The read() method is used to read a string from an already opened file. As said before,
the string can include, alphabets, numbers, characters or other symbols. The syntax of
read() method is fileObj.read([count])
In the above syntax, count is an optional parameter which if passed to the read()
method specifies the number of bytes to be read from the opened file. The read()
method starts reading from the beginning of the file and if count is missing or has a
negative value then, it reads the entire contents of the file (i.e., till the end of file).
The readlines() method is used to read all the lines in the file

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Why [] In W+ Mode?
 Opening Files using “with” Keyword
It is good programming habit to use the with keyword when working with file objects. This has the
advantage that the file is properly closed after it is used even if an error occurs during read or write
operation or even when you forget to explicitly close the file.

Example
s:

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 Splitting Words

Python allows you to read line(s) from a file and splits the line (treated as a string)
based on a character. By default, this character is space but you can even specify any
other character to split words in the string.

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TRY OUT
TRY OUT
Some Other Useful File Methods

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 File Positions
• With every file, the file management system associates a pointer often known as
file pointer that facilitate the movement across the file for reading and/ or writing
data.
• The file pointer specifies a location from where the current read or write operation
is initiated. Once the read/write operation is completed, the pointer is
automatically updated.
• Python has various methods that tells or sets the position of the file pointer.
• For example, the tell() method tells the current position within the file at which the next read
or write operation will occur. It is specified as number of bytes from the beginning of the file.
When you just open a file for reading, the file pointer is positioned at location 0, which is the
beginning of the file.
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 File Positions

• The seek(offset[, from]) method is used to set the position of the file pointer or
in simpler terms, move the file pointer to a new location. The offset argument
indicates the number of bytes to be moved and the from argument specifies the
reference position from where the bytes are to be moved.
f.seek(offset, from_what), where f is file pointer
Offset: Number of positions to move forward
from_what: It defines point of reference.
Returns: Return the new absolute position.
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File Positions - Example

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 Renaming and Deleting Files

• The os module in Python has various methods that can be used to perform file-
processing operations like renaming and deleting files. To use the methods
defined in the os module, you should first import it in your program then call any
related functions.
• The rename() Method: The rename() method takes two arguments, the current filename and the
new filename. Its syntax is:
• os.rename(old_file_name, new_file_name)
• The remove() Method: This method can be used to delete file(s). The method takes a filename
(name of the file to be deleted) as an argument and deletes that file. Its syntax is:
• os.remove(file_name)
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Renaming and Deleting Files

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 Directory Methods
• The mkdir() Method: The mkdir()method of the OS module is used to create
directories in the current directory. The method takes the name of the directory (the
one to be created) as an argument. The syntax of mkdir() is,
os.mkdir("new_dir_name")
• The getcwd() Method: The getcwd() method is used to display the current working
directory (cwd).
os.getcwd()
• The chdir() Method: The chdir() method is used to change the current directory. The
method takes the name of the directory which you want to make the current
directory as an argument. Its syntax is 50
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 Directory Methods

• The rmdir() Method: The rmdir() method is used to remove or delete a

directory. For this, it accepts name of the directory to be deleted as an
argument. However, before removing a directory, it should be
absolutely empty and all the contents in it should be removed. The
syntax of remove() method is
os.rmdir(("dir_name")
• The makedirs() method: The method mkdirs() is used to create more
than one folder. 51
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Directory Methods - Examples

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 Methods from the os Module

• The os.path.abspath() method uses the string value passed to it to

form an absolute path. Thus, it is another way to convert a relative
path to an absolute path
• The os.path.isabs(path) method accepts a file path as an argument and
returns True if the path is an absolute path and False otherwise.
• The os.path.relpath(path, start) method accepts a file path and a start
string as an argument and returns a relative path that begins from the
start. If start is not given, the current directory is taken as start. 53
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 Methods from the os Module

• The os.path.dirname(path) Method returns a string that includes

everything specified in the path (passed as argument to the method)
that comes before the last slash
• The os.path.basename(path) Method returns a string that includes
everything specified in the path (passed as argument to the method)
that comes after the last slash.

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 Methods from the os Module
• The os.path.split(path) Method: This method accepts a file path and returns its
directory name as well as the . So it is equivalent to using two separate methods
os.path.dirname() and os.path.basename()
• The os.path.getsize(path) Method: This method returns the size of the file specified
in the path argument.
• The os.listdir(path) Method: The method returns a list of filenames in the specified
path.
• The os.path.exists(path) Method: The method as the name suggests accepts a path
as an argument and returns True if the file or folder specified in the path exists and
False otherwise. 56
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 Methods from the os Module

• The os.path.isfile(path) Method: The method as the name suggests

accepts a path as an argument and returns True if the path specifies a
file and False otherwise.
• The os.path.isdir(path) Method: The method as the name suggests
accepts a path as an argument and returns True if the path specifies a
folder and False otherwise.

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Methods from the os Module — Examples

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