7. Glossary¶

open

You must open a file before you can read its contents.

close

When you are done with a file, you should close it.

read

Will read the entire contents of a file as a string. This is often used in an assignment statement so that a variable can reference the contents of the file.

readline

Will read a single line from the file, up to and including the first instance of the newline character.

readlines

Will read the entire contents of a file into a list where each line of the file is a string and is an element in the list.

write

Will add characters to the end of a file that has been opened for writing.