Open, Read, Delete a File in Python With Example

Assume we have the following file in the Python folder:

ws_file.txt

Hello! Welcome to wscube tech

This file is for testing purposes.

You can use the built-in open() function to open the file. This function will return a file object, which will contain a read() method for the purpose of reading the content in the file. 

Example:

p = open("ws_file.txt", "r")

print(p.read())

Output:

Example:

p = open("D:\\myfiles\\ws_file.txt", "r")

print(p.read())

Output:

By default, the read() function returns the complete text, but you can also specify the number of characters to return.

Example:

Show the first 5 characters of the file:

f = open("wscfile.txt", "r")

print(f.read(5))

Output:

The readline() method can be used to return a single line:

Example:

Read one line of the file:

f = open("wscfile.txt", "r")

print(f.readline())

Output:

Example:

Read two lines of the file:

f = open("wscfile.txt", "r")

print(f.readline())

print(f.readline())

Output:

Example:

Loop through the file line by line:

f = open("wscfile.txt", "r")

for x in f:

  print(x)

Output:

You must import the OS module and use its os.remove() method to delete a file:

import os

os.remove("demo_file.txt")