I'm trying to get Python to print the contents of a file:
log = open("/path/to/my/file.txt", "r") print str(log) Gives me the output:
<open file '/path/to/my/file.txt', mode 'r' at 0x7fd37f969390> Instead of printing the file. The file just has one short string of text in it, and when I do the opposite (writing the user_input from my Python script to that same file) it works properly.
edit: I see what Python thinks I'm asking it, I'm just wondering what the command to print something from inside a file is.
24 Answers
It is better to handle this with "with" to close the descriptor automatically for you. This will work with both 2.7 and python 3.
with open('/path/to/my/file.txt', 'r') as f: print(f.read()) open gives you an iterator that doesn't automatically load the whole file at once. It iterates by line so you can write a loop like so:
for line in log: print(line) If all you want to do is print the contents of the file to screen, you can use print(log.read())
open() will actually open a file object for you to read. If your intention is to read the complete contents of the file into the log variable then you should use read()
log = open("/path/to/my/file.txt", "r").read() print log That will print out the contents of the file.
file_o=open("/path/to/my/file.txt") //creates an object file_o to access the file content=file_o.read() //file is read using the created object print(content) //print-out the contents of file file_o.close() 
