Reading Data from Files

Before we begin, let's go through some fundamentals that we're going to be using in the next sections of this lesson.

Binary versus Text Files

There are many types of files in your computer: executable files, configuration files, data files, and so on. Files can be split into two basic groups: binary and text.

Binary files are used when human interaction with the files will only be indirect, such as executing an application (an executable file), or a spreadsheet file that loads inside Excel. If you try to look inside these files, you'll see a bunch of unreadable characters. This type of file is very useful because they can be made compact to take up less space and be structured so that computers can read them quickly.

Text files, on the other hand, contain readable characters. If you open them with a text editor, you can see what's in there. Not all of them are meant for humans to read and some formats are almost impossible to understand. But the majority of text files...