Computers use file systems to store and retrieve data. Each file is an individual container of related information. If you’ve ever saved a document, downloaded a song, or even sent an email you’ve created a file on some computer somewhere. Even script.py, the Python program you’re editing in the learning environment, is a file.

So, how do we interact with files using Python? We’re going to learn how to read and write different kinds of files using code. Let’s say we had a file called real_cool_document.txt with these contents:

real_cool_document.txt

Wowsers!

We could read that file like this:

script.py

with open('real_cool_document.txt') as cool_doc:
  cool_contents = cool_doc.read()
print(cool_contents)

This opens a file object called cool_doc and creates a new indented block where you can read the contents of the opened file. We then read the contents of the file cool_doc using cool_doc.read() and save the resulting string into the variable cool_contents. Then we print cool_contents, which outputs the statement Wowsers!.