Read Text Files Using Python

On 3 minutes, 30 seconds read By Edward

Parse Text Files

Python has built-in functions for creating, reading, modifying and deleting files.

The Python open() function is used for file handling.

Care must be taken when manipulating files to prevent errors such as editing the wrong file and deleting the content of a file by accident.

Python File Handling

Open Function

Open Modes
Name Description Example
r Opens a file for reading. f = open(“myfile.txt”, “r”)
a Opens a file for appending f = open(“myfile.txt”, “a”)
w Opens a file for writing f = open(“myfile.txt”, “w”)
x Create a specified file. f = open(“myfile.txt”, “x”)
t Text mode f = open(“myfile.txt”, “rt”)
b Binary mode f = open(“myimage.avif”, “rb”) 

import json

# Open JSON File
with open("myjson.json") as json_file:
	# Parse JSON File
	pythonobj = json.load(json_file)

# Read Values By Key
name = pythonobj['name']
age = pythonobj['age']
graduate = pythonobj['graduate']
combined = f"My name is {name}, and I am {age} years old and it is {graduate} that I am a graduate."
print(combined)

JSON File
Geany Lightweight IDE Displaying Opened JSON File

Python Code
Geany Lightweight IDE Displaying Python Code To Open JSON Files

Python Output
Terminal Command Line Output For Python Code That Opens JSON File


Usage

You can use any IDE, text editor or the Python interactive shell to parse text files. In this tutorial, a JSON string in a text file was used, but the code can easily be expanded to read the contents of a other text files and parse.

Morality Source

JSON is licensed under the JSON License. This allows commercial use, modification, distribution, and allows making derivatives proprietary. The clause “The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil” is incompatible with other open source licenses.

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Conclusion:

Python makes it easy to parse JSON data after importing the JSON module. JSON can be parsed as a string or from an external file.

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