File handling is an essential aspect of programming, allowing you to interact with external files, read their contents, modify them, and create new files. Python provides powerful built-in functions and modules for file handling, making it straightforward to work with files in various formats. In this blog post, we’ll explore the fundamentals of file handling in Python, including reading and writing files, as well as file manipulation techniques.

Reading Files

Python offers several methods for reading files. The most common approach is to use the open() function to open a file and then read its contents using methods like read()‘, readline()‘, or readlines()‘.

Let’s consider a simple example:

Open a file in read mode

file_path = ‘sample.txt’
with open(file_path, ‘r’) as file:
content = file.read()
print(content)

In the above code snippet:

• We use the open() function to open the file named ‘sample.txt’ in read mode ('r').
• We then use the read() method to read the entire contents of the file into the variable content.
• Finally, we print the content of the file.