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<div class="section" id="input-and-output">
<span id="tut-io"></span><h1>7. Input and Output<a class="headerlink" href="#input-and-output" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1>
<p>There are several ways to present the output of a program; data can be printed
in a human-readable form, or written to a file for future use. This chapter will
discuss some of the possibilities.</p>
<div class="section" id="fancier-output-formatting">
<span id="tut-formatting"></span><h2>7.1. Fancier Output Formatting<a class="headerlink" href="#fancier-output-formatting" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>So far we’ve encountered two ways of writing values: <em>expression statements</em> and
the <a class="reference internal" href="../reference/simple_stmts.html#print"><tt class="xref std std-keyword docutils literal"><span class="pre">print</span></tt></a> statement. (A third way is using the <tt class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">write()</span></tt> method
of file objects; the standard output file can be referenced as <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">sys.stdout</span></tt>.
See the Library Reference for more information on this.)</p>
<p>Often you’ll want more control over the formatting of your output than simply
printing space-separated values. There are two ways to format your output; the
first way is to do all the string handling yourself; using string slicing and
concatenation operations you can create any layout you can imagine. The
string types have some methods that perform useful operations for padding
strings to a given column width; these will be discussed shortly. The second
way is to use the <a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#str.format" title="str.format"><tt class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">str.format()</span></tt></a> method.</p>
<p>The <a class="reference internal" href="../library/string.html#module-string" title="string: Common string operations."><tt class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">string</span></tt></a> module contains a <a class="reference internal" href="../library/string.html#string.Template" title="string.Template"><tt class="xref py py-class docutils literal"><span class="pre">Template</span></tt></a> class which offers
yet another way to substitute values into strings.</p>
<p>One question remains, of course: how do you convert values to strings? Luckily,
Python has ways to convert any value to a string: pass it to the <a class="reference internal" href="../library/repr.html#module-repr" title="repr: Alternate repr() implementation with size limits."><tt class="xref py py-func docutils literal"><span class="pre">repr()</span></tt></a>
or <a class="reference internal" href="../library/functions.html#str" title="str"><tt class="xref py py-func docutils literal"><span class="pre">str()</span></tt></a> functions.</p>
<p>The <a class="reference internal" href="../library/functions.html#str" title="str"><tt class="xref py py-func docutils literal"><span class="pre">str()</span></tt></a> function is meant to return representations of values which are
fairly human-readable, while <a class="reference internal" href="../library/repr.html#module-repr" title="repr: Alternate repr() implementation with size limits."><tt class="xref py py-func docutils literal"><span class="pre">repr()</span></tt></a> is meant to generate representations
which can be read by the interpreter (or will force a <a class="reference internal" href="../library/exceptions.html#exceptions.SyntaxError" title="exceptions.SyntaxError"><tt class="xref py py-exc docutils literal"><span class="pre">SyntaxError</span></tt></a> if
there is no equivalent syntax). For objects which don’t have a particular
representation for human consumption, <a class="reference internal" href="../library/functions.html#str" title="str"><tt class="xref py py-func docutils literal"><span class="pre">str()</span></tt></a> will return the same value as
<a class="reference internal" href="../library/repr.html#module-repr" title="repr: Alternate repr() implementation with size limits."><tt class="xref py py-func docutils literal"><span class="pre">repr()</span></tt></a>. Many values, such as numbers or structures like lists and
dictionaries, have the same representation using either function. Strings and
floating point numbers, in particular, have two distinct representations.</p>
<p>Some examples:</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">s</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s">'Hello, world.'</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="nb">str</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">s</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">'Hello, world.'</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="nb">repr</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">s</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">"'Hello, world.'"</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="nb">str</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mf">1.0</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mf">7.0</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">'0.142857142857'</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="nb">repr</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mf">1.0</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mf">7.0</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">'0.14285714285714285'</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">x</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="mi">10</span> <span class="o">*</span> <span class="mf">3.25</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">y</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="mi">200</span> <span class="o">*</span> <span class="mi">200</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">s</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s">'The value of x is '</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="nb">repr</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="s">', and y is '</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="nb">repr</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">y</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="s">'...'</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span> <span class="n">s</span>
<span class="go">The value of x is 32.5, and y is 40000...</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="c"># The repr() of a string adds string quotes and backslashes:</span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="n">hello</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s">'hello, world</span><span class="se">\n</span><span class="s">'</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">hellos</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">repr</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">hello</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span> <span class="n">hellos</span>
<span class="go">'hello, world\n'</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="c"># The argument to repr() may be any Python object:</span>
<span class="gp">... </span><span class="nb">repr</span><span class="p">((</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">y</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="s">'spam'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">'eggs'</span><span class="p">)))</span>
<span class="go">"(32.5, 40000, ('spam', 'eggs'))"</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>Here are two ways to write a table of squares and cubes:</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">x</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="nb">range</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">11</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="gp">... </span> <span class="k">print</span> <span class="nb">repr</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">rjust</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="nb">repr</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">rjust</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">),</span>
<span class="gp">... </span> <span class="c"># Note trailing comma on previous line</span>
<span class="gp">... </span> <span class="k">print</span> <span class="nb">repr</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">rjust</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">...</span>
<span class="go"> 1 1 1</span>
<span class="go"> 2 4 8</span>
<span class="go"> 3 9 27</span>
<span class="go"> 4 16 64</span>
<span class="go"> 5 25 125</span>
<span class="go"> 6 36 216</span>
<span class="go"> 7 49 343</span>
<span class="go"> 8 64 512</span>
<span class="go"> 9 81 729</span>
<span class="go">10 100 1000</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">x</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="nb">range</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">11</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="gp">... </span> <span class="k">print</span> <span class="s">'{0:2d} {1:3d} {2:4d}'</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">format</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">x</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">x</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">...</span>
<span class="go"> 1 1 1</span>
<span class="go"> 2 4 8</span>
<span class="go"> 3 9 27</span>
<span class="go"> 4 16 64</span>
<span class="go"> 5 25 125</span>
<span class="go"> 6 36 216</span>
<span class="go"> 7 49 343</span>
<span class="go"> 8 64 512</span>
<span class="go"> 9 81 729</span>
<span class="go">10 100 1000</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>(Note that in the first example, one space between each column was added by the
way <a class="reference internal" href="../reference/simple_stmts.html#print"><tt class="xref std std-keyword docutils literal"><span class="pre">print</span></tt></a> works: it always adds spaces between its arguments.)</p>
<p>This example demonstrates the <a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#str.rjust" title="str.rjust"><tt class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">str.rjust()</span></tt></a> method of string
objects, which right-justifies a string in a field of a given width by padding
it with spaces on the left. There are similar methods <a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#str.ljust" title="str.ljust"><tt class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">str.ljust()</span></tt></a> and
<a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#str.center" title="str.center"><tt class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">str.center()</span></tt></a>. These methods do not write anything, they just return a
new string. If the input string is too long, they don’t truncate it, but
return it unchanged; this will mess up your column lay-out but that’s usually
better than the alternative, which would be lying about a value. (If you
really want truncation you can always add a slice operation, as in
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">x.ljust(n)[:n]</span></tt>.)</p>
<p>There is another method, <a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#str.zfill" title="str.zfill"><tt class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">str.zfill()</span></tt></a>, which pads a numeric string on the
left with zeros. It understands about plus and minus signs:</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="s">'12'</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">zfill</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">5</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">'00012'</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="s">'-3.14'</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">zfill</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">7</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">'-003.14'</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="s">'3.14159265359'</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">zfill</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">5</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">'3.14159265359'</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>Basic usage of the <a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#str.format" title="str.format"><tt class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">str.format()</span></tt></a> method looks like this:</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span> <span class="s">'We are the {} who say "{}!"'</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">format</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">'knights'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">'Ni'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">We are the knights who say "Ni!"</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>The brackets and characters within them (called format fields) are replaced with
the objects passed into the <a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#str.format" title="str.format"><tt class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">str.format()</span></tt></a> method. A number in the
brackets refers to the position of the object passed into the
<a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#str.format" title="str.format"><tt class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">str.format()</span></tt></a> method.</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span> <span class="s">'{0} and {1}'</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">format</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">'spam'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">'eggs'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">spam and eggs</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span> <span class="s">'{1} and {0}'</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">format</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">'spam'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">'eggs'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">eggs and spam</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>If keyword arguments are used in the <a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#str.format" title="str.format"><tt class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">str.format()</span></tt></a> method, their values
are referred to by using the name of the argument.</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span> <span class="s">'This {food} is {adjective}.'</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">format</span><span class="p">(</span>
<span class="gp">... </span> <span class="n">food</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">'spam'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">adjective</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">'absolutely horrible'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">This spam is absolutely horrible.</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>Positional and keyword arguments can be arbitrarily combined:</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span> <span class="s">'The story of {0}, {1}, and {other}.'</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">format</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">'Bill'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">'Manfred'</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="gp">... </span> <span class="n">other</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">'Georg'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">The story of Bill, Manfred, and Georg.</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'!s'</span></tt> (apply <a class="reference internal" href="../library/functions.html#str" title="str"><tt class="xref py py-func docutils literal"><span class="pre">str()</span></tt></a>) and <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'!r'</span></tt> (apply <a class="reference internal" href="../library/repr.html#module-repr" title="repr: Alternate repr() implementation with size limits."><tt class="xref py py-func docutils literal"><span class="pre">repr()</span></tt></a>) can be used to
convert the value before it is formatted.</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="kn">import</span> <span class="nn">math</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span> <span class="s">'The value of PI is approximately {}.'</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">format</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">math</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">pi</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">The value of PI is approximately 3.14159265359.</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span> <span class="s">'The value of PI is approximately {!r}.'</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">format</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">math</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">pi</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">The value of PI is approximately 3.141592653589793.</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>An optional <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">':'</span></tt> and format specifier can follow the field name. This allows
greater control over how the value is formatted. The following example
rounds Pi to three places after the decimal.</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="kn">import</span> <span class="nn">math</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span> <span class="s">'The value of PI is approximately {0:.3f}.'</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">format</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">math</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">pi</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">The value of PI is approximately 3.142.</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>Passing an integer after the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">':'</span></tt> will cause that field to be a minimum
number of characters wide. This is useful for making tables pretty.</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">table</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="p">{</span><span class="s">'Sjoerd'</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="mi">4127</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">'Jack'</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="mi">4098</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">'Dcab'</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="mi">7678</span><span class="p">}</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">name</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">phone</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">table</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">items</span><span class="p">():</span>
<span class="gp">... </span> <span class="k">print</span> <span class="s">'{0:10} ==> {1:10d}'</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">format</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">name</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">phone</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">...</span>
<span class="go">Jack ==> 4098</span>
<span class="go">Dcab ==> 7678</span>
<span class="go">Sjoerd ==> 4127</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>If you have a really long format string that you don’t want to split up, it
would be nice if you could reference the variables to be formatted by name
instead of by position. This can be done by simply passing the dict and using
square brackets <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'[]'</span></tt> to access the keys</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">table</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="p">{</span><span class="s">'Sjoerd'</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="mi">4127</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">'Jack'</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="mi">4098</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">'Dcab'</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="mi">8637678</span><span class="p">}</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="s">'Jack: {0[Jack]:d}; Sjoerd: {0[Sjoerd]:d}; '</span>
<span class="gp">... </span> <span class="s">'Dcab: {0[Dcab]:d}'</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">format</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">table</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="go">Jack: 4098; Sjoerd: 4127; Dcab: 8637678</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>This could also be done by passing the table as keyword arguments with the ‘**’
notation.</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">table</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="p">{</span><span class="s">'Sjoerd'</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="mi">4127</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">'Jack'</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="mi">4098</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">'Dcab'</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="mi">8637678</span><span class="p">}</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span> <span class="s">'Jack: {Jack:d}; Sjoerd: {Sjoerd:d}; Dcab: {Dcab:d}'</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">format</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="n">table</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">Jack: 4098; Sjoerd: 4127; Dcab: 8637678</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>This is particularly useful in combination with the built-in function
<a class="reference internal" href="../library/functions.html#vars" title="vars"><tt class="xref py py-func docutils literal"><span class="pre">vars()</span></tt></a>, which returns a dictionary containing all local variables.</p>
<p>For a complete overview of string formatting with <a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#str.format" title="str.format"><tt class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">str.format()</span></tt></a>, see
<a class="reference internal" href="../library/string.html#formatstrings"><em>Format String Syntax</em></a>.</p>
<div class="section" id="old-string-formatting">
<h3>7.1.1. Old string formatting<a class="headerlink" href="#old-string-formatting" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>The <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">%</span></tt> operator can also be used for string formatting. It interprets the
left argument much like a <tt class="xref c c-func docutils literal"><span class="pre">sprintf()</span></tt>-style format string to be applied
to the right argument, and returns the string resulting from this formatting
operation. For example:</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="kn">import</span> <span class="nn">math</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span> <span class="s">'The value of PI is approximately </span><span class="si">%5.3f</span><span class="s">.'</span> <span class="o">%</span> <span class="n">math</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">pi</span>
<span class="go">The value of PI is approximately 3.142.</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>Since <a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#str.format" title="str.format"><tt class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">str.format()</span></tt></a> is quite new, a lot of Python code still uses the <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">%</span></tt>
operator. However, because this old style of formatting will eventually be
removed from the language, <a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#str.format" title="str.format"><tt class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">str.format()</span></tt></a> should generally be used.</p>
<p>More information can be found in the <a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#string-formatting"><em>String Formatting Operations</em></a> section.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="reading-and-writing-files">
<span id="tut-files"></span><h2>7.2. Reading and Writing Files<a class="headerlink" href="#reading-and-writing-files" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p id="index-0"><a class="reference internal" href="../library/functions.html#open" title="open"><tt class="xref py py-func docutils literal"><span class="pre">open()</span></tt></a> returns a file object, and is most commonly used with two
arguments: <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">open(filename,</span> <span class="pre">mode)</span></tt>.</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">f</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">open</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">'workfile'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">'w'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">print</span> <span class="n">f</span>
<span class="go"><open file 'workfile', mode 'w' at 80a0960></span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>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. <em>mode</em> can be <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'r'</span></tt> when the file will only be read, <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'w'</span></tt>
for only writing (an existing file with the same name will be erased), and
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'a'</span></tt> opens the file for appending; any data written to the file is
automatically added to the end. <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'r+'</span></tt> opens the file for both reading and
writing. The <em>mode</em> argument is optional; <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'r'</span></tt> will be assumed if it’s
omitted.</p>
<p>On Windows, <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'b'</span></tt> appended to the mode opens the file in binary mode, so there
are also modes like <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'rb'</span></tt>, <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'wb'</span></tt>, and <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'r+b'</span></tt>. Python on Windows makes
a distinction between text and binary files; the end-of-line characters in text
files are automatically altered slightly when data is read or written. This
behind-the-scenes modification to file data is fine for ASCII text files, but
it’ll corrupt binary data like that in <tt class="file docutils literal"><span class="pre">JPEG</span></tt> or <tt class="file docutils literal"><span class="pre">EXE</span></tt> files. Be
very careful to use binary mode when reading and writing such files. On Unix,
it doesn’t hurt to append a <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'b'</span></tt> to the mode, so you can use it
platform-independently for all binary files.</p>
<div class="section" id="methods-of-file-objects">
<span id="tut-filemethods"></span><h3>7.2.1. Methods of File Objects<a class="headerlink" href="#methods-of-file-objects" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>The rest of the examples in this section will assume that a file object called
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">f</span></tt> has already been created.</p>
<p>To read a file’s contents, call <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">f.read(size)</span></tt>, which reads some quantity of
data and returns it as a string. <em>size</em> is an optional numeric argument. When
<em>size</em> is omitted or negative, the entire contents of the file will be read and
returned; it’s your problem if the file is twice as large as your machine’s
memory. Otherwise, at most <em>size</em> bytes are read and returned. If the end of
the file has been reached, <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">f.read()</span></tt> will return an empty string (<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">""</span></tt>).</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">f</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">read</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="go">'This is the entire file.\n'</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">f</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">read</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="go">''</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">f.readline()</span></tt> reads a single line from the file; a newline character (<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">\n</span></tt>)
is left at the end of the string, and is only omitted on the last line of the
file if the file doesn’t end in a newline. This makes the return value
unambiguous; if <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">f.readline()</span></tt> returns an empty string, the end of the file
has been reached, while a blank line is represented by <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'\n'</span></tt>, a string
containing only a single newline.</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">f</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">readline</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="go">'This is the first line of the file.\n'</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">f</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">readline</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="go">'Second line of the file\n'</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">f</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">readline</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="go">''</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>For reading lines from a file, you can loop over the file object. This is memory
efficient, fast, and leads to simple code:</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">line</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">f</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="go"> print line,</span>
<span class="go">This is the first line of the file.</span>
<span class="go">Second line of the file</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>If you want to read all the lines of a file in a list you can also use
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">list(f)</span></tt> or <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">f.readlines()</span></tt>.</p>
<p><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">f.write(string)</span></tt> writes the contents of <em>string</em> to the file, returning
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">None</span></tt>.</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">f</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">write</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">'This is a test</span><span class="se">\n</span><span class="s">'</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>To write something other than a string, it needs to be converted to a string
first:</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">value</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="s">'the answer'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">42</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">s</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">str</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">value</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">f</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">write</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">s</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">f.tell()</span></tt> returns an integer giving the file object’s current position in the
file, measured in bytes from the beginning of the file. To change the file
object’s position, use <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">f.seek(offset,</span> <span class="pre">from_what)</span></tt>. The position is computed
from adding <em>offset</em> to a reference point; the reference point is selected by
the <em>from_what</em> argument. A <em>from_what</em> value of 0 measures from the beginning
of the file, 1 uses the current file position, and 2 uses the end of the file as
the reference point. <em>from_what</em> can be omitted and defaults to 0, using the
beginning of the file as the reference point.</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">f</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">open</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">'workfile'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">'r+'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">f</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">write</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">'0123456789abcdef'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">f</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">seek</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">5</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="c"># Go to the 6th byte in the file</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">f</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">read</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">'5'</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">f</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">seek</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="c"># Go to the 3rd byte before the end</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">f</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">read</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="go">'d'</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>When you’re done with a file, call <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">f.close()</span></tt> to close it and free up any
system resources taken up by the open file. After calling <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">f.close()</span></tt>,
attempts to use the file object will automatically fail.</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">f</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">close</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">f</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">read</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="gt">Traceback (most recent call last):</span>
File <span class="nb">"<stdin>"</span>, line <span class="m">1</span>, in <span class="n">?</span>
<span class="gr">ValueError</span>: <span class="n">I/O operation on closed file</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>It is good practice to use the <a class="reference internal" href="../reference/compound_stmts.html#with"><tt class="xref std std-keyword docutils literal"><span class="pre">with</span></tt></a> keyword when dealing with file
objects. This has the advantage that the file is properly closed after its
suite finishes, even if an exception is raised on the way. It is also much
shorter than writing equivalent <a class="reference internal" href="../reference/compound_stmts.html#try"><tt class="xref std std-keyword docutils literal"><span class="pre">try</span></tt></a>-<a class="reference internal" href="../reference/compound_stmts.html#finally"><tt class="xref std std-keyword docutils literal"><span class="pre">finally</span></tt></a> blocks:</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">with</span> <span class="nb">open</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">'workfile'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s">'r'</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="k">as</span> <span class="n">f</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="gp">... </span> <span class="n">read_data</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">f</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">read</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">f</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">closed</span>
<span class="go">True</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>File objects have some additional methods, such as <a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#file.isatty" title="file.isatty"><tt class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">isatty()</span></tt></a> and
<a class="reference internal" href="../library/stdtypes.html#file.truncate" title="file.truncate"><tt class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">truncate()</span></tt></a> which are less frequently used; consult the Library
Reference for a complete guide to file objects.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="the-pickle-module">
<span id="tut-pickle"></span><h3>7.2.2. The <a class="reference internal" href="../library/pickle.html#module-pickle" title="pickle: Convert Python objects to streams of bytes and back."><tt class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">pickle</span></tt></a> Module<a class="headerlink" href="#the-pickle-module" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p id="index-1">Strings can easily be written to and read from a file. Numbers take a bit more
effort, since the <tt class="xref py py-meth docutils literal"><span class="pre">read()</span></tt> method only returns strings, which will have to
be passed to a function like <a class="reference internal" href="../library/functions.html#int" title="int"><tt class="xref py py-func docutils literal"><span class="pre">int()</span></tt></a>, which takes a string like <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'123'</span></tt>
and returns its numeric value 123. However, when you want to save more complex
data types like lists, dictionaries, or class instances, things get a lot more
complicated.</p>
<p>Rather than have users be constantly writing and debugging code to save
complicated data types, Python provides a standard module called <a class="reference internal" href="../library/pickle.html#module-pickle" title="pickle: Convert Python objects to streams of bytes and back."><tt class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">pickle</span></tt></a>.
This is an amazing module that can take almost any Python object (even some
forms of Python code!), and convert it to a string representation; this process
is called <em class="dfn">pickling</em>. Reconstructing the object from the string
representation is called <em class="dfn">unpickling</em>. Between pickling and unpickling,
the string representing the object may have been stored in a file or data, or
sent over a network connection to some distant machine.</p>
<p>If you have an object <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">x</span></tt>, and a file object <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">f</span></tt> that’s been opened for
writing, the simplest way to pickle the object takes only one line of code:</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="n">pickle</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">dump</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">f</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>To unpickle the object again, if <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">f</span></tt> is a file object which has been opened
for reading:</p>
<div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="n">x</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">pickle</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">load</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">f</span><span class="p">)</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>(There are other variants of this, used when pickling many objects or when you
don’t want to write the pickled data to a file; consult the complete
documentation for <a class="reference internal" href="../library/pickle.html#module-pickle" title="pickle: Convert Python objects to streams of bytes and back."><tt class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">pickle</span></tt></a> in the Python Library Reference.)</p>
<p><a class="reference internal" href="../library/pickle.html#module-pickle" title="pickle: Convert Python objects to streams of bytes and back."><tt class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">pickle</span></tt></a> is the standard way to make Python objects which can be stored and
reused by other programs or by a future invocation of the same program; the
technical term for this is a <em class="dfn">persistent</em> object. Because <a class="reference internal" href="../library/pickle.html#module-pickle" title="pickle: Convert Python objects to streams of bytes and back."><tt class="xref py py-mod docutils literal"><span class="pre">pickle</span></tt></a> is
so widely used, many authors who write Python extensions take care to ensure
that new data types such as matrices can be properly pickled and unpickled.</p>
</div>
</div>
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<h3><a href="../contents.html">Table Of Contents</a></h3>
<ul>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#">7. Input and Output</a><ul>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#fancier-output-formatting">7.1. Fancier Output Formatting</a><ul>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#old-string-formatting">7.1.1. Old string formatting</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#reading-and-writing-files">7.2. Reading and Writing Files</a><ul>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#methods-of-file-objects">7.2.1. Methods of File Objects</a></li>
<li><a class="reference internal" href="#the-pickle-module">7.2.2. The <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">pickle</span></tt> Module</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
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