FILES IN PYTHON

READ, CREATE AND UPDATE

TXT, CSV AND JSON FILES
AGENDA
 1. TXT FILES
LOADING A TXT INTO A STRING USIGN.read() WRITING DATA TO TXT USING .write()
This method will either create a new file or overwrite
with open("file_name.txt") as file_object: an existing one with the same name
variable_name = file_object.read()
with open("file_name.txt", "w") as file_object:
file_object.write(" text")
o file_name.txt: this is the name of your txt file
o file_object: it can be named as you want (it is a
o file_name.txt: this is the name of your file. If it
temporary variable), but remember to reference it
doesn’t exist in your directory, Python will create
in the line below
a new file. If it exists, Python will overwrite it
o variable_name: it can be named as you want. It is
o text: the text you want to write to the txt file
used to store the data from your .txt file as a
(use \n in your text for line breaks)
string

LOAD A TXT INTO A LIST USING.splitlines() APPEND DATA TO THE END OF A TXT FILE

with open("file_name.txt") as file_object: with open("file_name.txt", "a") as file_object:

list_name = file_object.read().splitlines() file_object.write(" text ")

o This will add the text to the end of an already

o list_name: name it as you want. It is a list used to
existing .txt file (file_name.txt)
store each line from your .txt

2 WORKING WITH FILES

 2. CSV FILES o dict_name: name it as you want. It is used to store
the data from your .csv file
READING CSVs
o newline = "": used so that we don’t accidentally
There are two ways:
mistake a line break in one of our data fields as a
1) Using .read() [not recommended]
new row in our CSV
with open("file_name.csv") as file_object: o print(list(dict_name)): this line will print the
variable_name = file_object.read()
data from the .csv file

o file_name.csv: this is the name of your csv file

o file_object: it can be named as you want, but IF THE DELIMITER IS NOT A COMMA
remember to reference it in the line below
import csv
o variable_name: name it as you want. It is used to
store the data from your .csv file as a string with open("file_name.csv", newline="") as file_object:
dict_name=csv.DictReader(file_object, delimiter=";")

2) Using csv.DictReader() [highly recommended]

o delimiter=";": it sets the delimiter from a comma to
import csv any character inside the quotes (; in this case)

with open("file_name.csv", newline="") as file_object: SAVE DATA TO CSV

dict_name = csv.DictReader(file_object) You first need a dictionary with the data you want to
print(list(dict_name))
save to the csv file. You also need to declare the
fieldnames (these are the key names of your dictionary)

3 WORKING WITH FILES

 3. JSON FILES
import csv
READING A JSON FILE
with open("file_name.csv", "w") as file_object:
fields = [“key1", “key2"] import json

output_writter = csv.DictWriter(file_object, with open("file_name.json") as file_object:

fieldnames=fields) dict_name = json.load(file_object)
output_writter.writeheader()
o dict_name: it can be a dictionary with any name. It is
for item in dict_list:
used to store the data from your .json file
output_writter.writerow(item)
o "file_name.json": name of the file to read

o file_name.csv: this is the name of the csv file to

save the data
WRITE DATA TO A JSON FILE

o fields: name of the keys in your dictionary (ex.

import json
"name", "age")
o dict_list: a list of dictionaries with the data you with open("file_name.json", "w") as file_object:
json.dump(dict_name, file_object)
want to save to the csv file.
Example: dict_list = [{"name": "Claudio", "age":
26}, {"name": "Viktoria", "age": 22}] o dict_name: the name of the dictionary you want to load
the json file. You can also use a list of dictionaries

4 WORKING WITH FILES