Overview
In Python, you need to give access to a file by opening it. You can do it by using the open() function. Open returns a file object, which has methods and attributes for getting information about and manipulating the opened file.
With statement
With the “With” statement, you get better syntax and exception handling.
“The with statement simplifies exception handling by encapsulating common preparation and cleanup tasks.”
In addition, it will automatically close the file. The with statement provides a way to ensure that a clean-up is always used.
Without the with statement, we would write something like this:
file = open("welcome.txt")
data = file.read()
print data
file.close() # It's important to close the file when you're done with it
With Statement Usage
Opening a file using with is as simple as: with open(filename) as file:
with open("welcome.txt") as file: # Use file to refer to the file object
data = file.read()
do something with data
Opens output.txt in write mode
with open('output.txt', 'w') as file: # Use file to refer to the file object
file.write('Hi there!')
Notice, that we didn’t have to write “file.close()”. That will automatically be called.