Python course / Working Python

Files and the filesystem

Read and write files, and handle paths, folders, CSV and JSON without string surgery. A half-written file corrupts the data it was meant to save, so you learn the write that cannot leave one.

• with and open
• modes
• paths as objects
• listing folders
• CSV
• JSON
• encodings
• safe writes

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import json
import tempfile
from pathlib import Path

folder = Path(tempfile.mkdtemp())
prices = folder / "prices.json"

prices.write_text(json.dumps({"tea": 3.5, "jam": 2.25}), encoding="utf-8")

with prices.open(encoding="utf-8") as handle:
    loaded = json.load(handle)

print("name:", prices.name, "suffix:", prices.suffix)
print("tea costs", loaded["tea"])

name: prices.json suffix: .json
tea costs 3.5