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Reading A Text File In Python

In this article, we will read the data from a text file in Python.

Example

First, I have created a text file with the following content.

Picture showing the sample text file with data

myfile = open("test.txt","r")
print(myfile.read())

In the above code, we are calling the open method to open a text file. In the first parameter, we are passing the filename which is in the same folder as the Python program. The second parameter specifies the mode in which we open the file. For this example, we are opening the file in the read mode.

Once you run the program, you will get the following output.

Picture showing the output of reading the text file in python

Specify The Number Of Characters In The Read Function

You can also specify the number of characters you want to read from the text file. Consider the following example.

myfile = open("test.txt","r")
print(myfile.read(10))

Here we are specifying that we are reading 10 characters. So, the output of the above code is: -

Picture showing output of reading the fixed number of characters from the text file

Readline Function

From the readline function, you can read a single line from the text file. It also adds a blank line.

myfile = open("test.txt","r")
print(myfile.readline())

The output would be: -

Picture showing the output of Readline function for reading the text file

You can also specify the number of characters as we did in the read function.

myfile = open("test.txt","r")
print(myfile.readline(10))

Picture showing the output of reading the specific number of characters from the text file using the readline function

Read Line By Line

Here is the code to read the text file.

myfile = open("test.txt","r")
for line in myfile:
   print(line)

Here is the output.

Picture showing the output of reading the text file line by line

Posted By -	Karan Gupta

Posted On -	Monday, March 4, 2019

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