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Python Regular Expressions in Python Introduction to Regular Expressions Reading Files

Posted by sidni ahmed
sidni ahmed
3,329 Points

reading file on my pc?

i am trying to read the same 'names.txt' file one my PC keep getting errors. I have made a directory just for the text file but it does not work.

code is:

names_file = open("c:/test/names.txt", encoding="utf-8") data = names_file.read() names_file.close()

print(data)

error is:

RESTART: C:/Users/Windows/Desktop/Courses/Python/Test_files/address_book.py Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:/Users/Windows/Desktop/Courses/Python/Test_files/address_book.py", line 2, in <module> data = names_file.read() File "C:\Users\Windows\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python35\lib\codecs.py", line 321, in decode (result, consumed) = self._buffer_decode(data, self.errors, final) UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xd6 in position 217: invalid continuation byte

4 Answers

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
241,485 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
241,485 Points

:mailbox_with_mail: I got your message!

It looks like your file contents are not being handled by the utf-8 decoder. Is it possible that's not the actual format?

You might try specifying a different format (perhaps utf-16?) in the open statement, or converting your file to another format (perhaps plain ASCII) which can be read without a special decoder.

Keyer Soze
PLUS
Keyer Soze
Courses Plus Student 1,068 Points
Keyer Soze
Keyer Soze
Courses Plus Student 1,068 Points 
TypeError: 'encoding' is an invalid keyword argument for this function

So the function open should have the open(name[, mode[, buffering]]) So the Correct Way is:

names_file = open("c:/test/names.txt", "r") data = names_file.read() names_file.close()
Cindy Lea
PLUS
Cindy Lea
Courses Plus Student 6,497 Points
Cindy Lea
Cindy Lea
Courses Plus Student 6,497 Points

Have you tried something like this using the 'r' parameter?

file = open('newfile.txt', 'r')

sidni ahmed
sidni ahmed
3,329 Points
sidni ahmed
sidni ahmed
3,329 Points

yes, problem is 'names.text' has utf-8 encoding so if i use 'r' parameter it missed out utf-8 characters