Files

To open a local file in Python we call the built-in open() function. This takes a number of arguments, but the most commonly used are:

• file: the path to the file. This is required.
• mode: read, write, append and binary or text. This is optional, but we recommend always specifying it for clarity. Explicit is better than implicit.
• encoding: If the file contains encoded text data, which encoding to use. It's often a good idea to specify this. If you don't specify it, Python will choose a default encoding for you.

Binary and text modes

At the filesytem level, of course, files contain only a series of bytes. Python, however, distinguishes between files opened in binary and text modes, even when the underlying operating...