File Handling
What is file handling?
- File handling is the use of programming techniques to work with information stored in text files
- Examples of file handing techniques are:
- opening text files
- reading text files
- writing text files
- closing text files
Concept | OCR exam reference | Python |
Open |
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Close |
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Read line |
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Write line |
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End of file |
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Create a new file |
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Append a file |
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Python example (reading data)
Employees | Text file |
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Greg |
Python example (writing new data)
Employees | |
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Greg |
Exam Tip
When opening files it is really important to make sure you use the correct letter in the open command
- "r" is for reading from a file only
- "w" is for writing to a new file, if the file does not exist it will be created. If a file with the same name exists the contents will be overwritten
- "a" is for writing to the end of an existing file only
Always make a backup of text files you are working with, one mistake and you can lose the contents!
Worked example
Use pseudocode to write an algorithm that does the following :
- Inputs the title and year of a book from the user.
- Permanently stores the book title and year to the existing text file books.txt [4]
How to answer this question
- Write two input statements (title and year of book)
- Open the file
- Write inputs to file
- Close the file
Example answer
title = input("Enter title")
year = input("Enter year")
file = open("books.txt")
file.writeline(title)
file.writeline(year)
file.close()
Gudiance
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title = input("Enter title")
1 mark for bothyear = input("Enter year")
file = open("books.txt")
1 mark
file.writeline(title)
1 mark for both
file.writeline(year)
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file.close()
1 mark