File Handling in Python

File Handling

• File handling in Python involves working with various types of files, including text files, binary files, and CSV files.
• You can perform a range of operations on files, such as creating, writing, appending, inserting, deleting, updating, and modifying data.

Types of Files

• Text File: Text files contain human-readable text and are typically encoded in plain text formats like ASCII or UTF-8.
• Binary Files: Binary files contain non-textual data and can be in various formats, such as images, audio, or any data that doesn't follow plain text encoding.
• CSV File: CSV (Comma-Separated Values) files store tabular data in plain text form, with values separated by commas.

Creating and Writing to a Text File in Python

• To create a new file, you can use the built-in open() function with the 'w' (write) mode for text files or 'wb' (write binary) mode for binary files.
• Here's an example of creating a text file and writing data:

1# Create and write to a text file
2with open('example.txt', 'w') as file:
3    file.write("Hello, this is a text file.\n")
4    file.write("You can write text to it.\n")

Appending Data to Files

• To append data to an existing file, you can use the 'a' (append) mode.
• Here's an example:

1# Append data to a text file
2with open('example.txt', 'a') as file:
3    file.write("This text is appended to the file.\n")

Insertion, Deletion, and Modification of Data

• Inserting, deleting, and modifying data in a file is more complex and typically involves reading the file, making the necessary changes in memory, and then writing the updated data back to the file.
• Here's an example of modifying a specific line in a text file:

1# Read the file into memory
2with open('example.txt', 'r') as file:
3    lines = file.readlines()
4
5# Modify a line
6lines[1] = "This line has been modified.\n"
7
8# Write the updated data back to the file
9with open('example.txt', 'w') as file:
10    file.writelines(lines)

Conclusion

• File handling is an essential part of working with data in Python.
• You can create, write, append, insert, delete, update, and modify data in text and binary files.