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Anubhav Sharma
Anubhav Sharma

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The Anubhav portal was launched in March 2015 at the behest of the Hon'ble Prime Minister for retiring government officials to leave a record of their experiences while in Govt service .

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Anubhav Sharma
Anubhav Sharma 31 Oct 2025
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File handling in Python is an essential part of programming — it allows you to create, read, write, and manipulate files directly from your code.

Here’s a complete explanation — simple and structured

1. What Is File Handling?

File handling in Python enables programs to store data permanently (unlike variables, which are lost when a program ends). You can use it to work with text files (.txt), binary files (.bin), CSV, JSON, and more.

Python provides a built-in function:

open()

to interact with files.

2. Syntax of open()

file = open("filename", "mode")

Parameters:

  • filename → Name or path of the file (e.g., "data.txt" or "C:/Files/data.txt")
  • mode → Defines the purpose of opening the file.

3. File Modes

Mode Meaning Description
'r' Read Opens file for reading (default). Error if file doesn’t exist.
'w' Write Opens for writing, creates new file or overwrites existing one.
'a' Append Opens for writing, creates new file if missing, adds to end of file.
'r+' Read & Write Reads and writes, doesn’t truncate file.
'w+' Write & Read Overwrites existing file.
'a+' Append & Read Adds new data, can also read existing data.
'x' Exclusive creation Creates file; raises error if file exists.
'b' Binary mode For binary files (images, audio, etc.). Used as 'rb', 'wb', etc.
't' Text mode Default mode for text files.

4. Reading Files

a) Read the whole file

with open("example.txt", "r") as file:
    content = file.read()
    print(content)

b) Read line by line

with open("example.txt", "r") as file:
    for line in file:
        print(line.strip())

c) Read first N characters

with open("example.txt", "r") as file:
    print(file.read(10))  # Reads first 10 characters

5. Writing to Files

a) Overwrite existing content

with open("example.txt", "w") as file:
    file.write("This text replaces old content.")

b) Append to file

with open("example.txt", "a") as file:
    file.write("\nThis text is added at the end.")

6. Using with Statement (Best Practice)

Using with automatically closes the file after use — even if an error occurs.

Example:

with open("example.txt", "r") as file:
    data = file.read()
# file is automatically closed here

Without with, you’d have to close it manually:

file = open("example.txt", "r")
data = file.read()
file.close()

7. Checking If File Exists (Optional)

You can check file existence before opening:

import os
if os.path.exists("example.txt"):
    print("File exists")
else:
    print("File not found")

8. Working with Binary Files

Example – writing and reading an image:

# Write binary
with open("image_copy.jpg", "wb") as file:
    with open("original.jpg", "rb") as source:
        file.write(source.read())

9. Deleting Files

import os
os.remove("example.txt")

10. Summary

Operation Function/Method Example
Open a file open() open("file.txt", "r")
Read file read(), readline(), readlines() file.read()
Write to file write(), writelines() file.write("text")
Close file close() file.close()
Check file exists os.path.exists() os.path.exists("file.txt")
Delete file os.remove() os.remove("file.txt")
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