How to get python to open an outside file?

Question

I am writing a program for class that opens a file, counts the words, returns the number of words, and closes. I understand how to do everything excpet get the file to open and display the text This is what I have so far:

    fname = open("C:\Python32\getty.txt") 
    file = open(fname, 'r')
    data = file.read()
    print(data)

The error I'm getting is:

    TypeError: invalid file: <_io.TextIOWrapper name='C:\\Python32\\getty.txt' mode='r'
    encoding='cp1252'>

The file is saved in the correct place and I have checked spelling, etc. I am using pycharm to work on this and the file that I am trying to open is in notepad.

Answer 1

You're using open() twice, so you've actually already opened the file, and then you attempt to open the already opened file object... change your code to:

fname = "C:\\Python32\\getty.txt"
infile = open(fname, 'r')
data = infile.read()
print(data)

The TypeError is saying that it cannot open type _io.TextIOWrapper which is what open() returns when opening a file.

---

Edit: You should really be handling files like so:

with open(r"C:\Python32\getty.txt", 'r') as infile:
    data = infile.read()
    print(data)

because when the with statement block is finished, it will handle file closing for you, which is very nice. The r before the string will prevent python from interpreting it, leaving it exactly how you formed it.