I am getting a File not Found error on a simple Python open() function

Question

Here is the code I have boiled it down to a simple open(), the Open file input statement displays but the Close file does not. This runs in the Idle interface but not in the command line interface.

Both the program and the file (spelled correctly and all lower case) are on the desktop for this test. Does anyone see what is missing?open

# Read It
# Demonstrates reading from a text file

input("\n\nPress the enter key to Open file")
print("Opening and closing the file.")
text_file = open("nicole1.txt", "r")
input("\n\nPress the enter key to Close file")
text_file.close()

input("\n\nPress the enter key to exit.")

** Update, Ok I tried the absolute path and it was not successful. I have a copy of this on a flash drive. I ran it on a Windows XP box and a Windows 7 box and it ran just fine. I take the same flash drive and try and run it on a Windows10 Box and I get the problem. One comment asked if there was a traceback and there is and it basically indicates that the file does not exist. I am now trying to determine if this is a Windows 10 issue. Also, the code will run inside idle on both Windows Boxes (XP and Win10).

Answer 1

I had the same problem on Windows 10 and the solution was, as stupid as it sounds, to simply decrease the path length. Apparently, Windows (10) still has problems with very long paths in 2021 AD.

Answer 2

Well, besides the fact that I named it nicole1.txt.txt by accident initially (due to the way that Windows automatically uses extensions and Linux does not), it works perfectly fine for me using Windows 10 Home and Pro, and Ubuntu 16.04. I simply just executed python test.py in the command prompt with test.py containing your script and making sure both files were in the same directory.

I cannot test it on any other Windows version, as I no longer use them.

Also, btw, you may want to rewrite your code to:

input("\n\nPress the enter key to Open file")
print("Opening and closing the file.")
with open("nicole1.txt", "r") as text_file:
    input("\n\nPress the enter key to Close file")
    text_file.close()
input("\n\nPress the enter key to exit.")

This way, you make sure the file is closed no matter what happens. And yes, I know, technically speaking the file is closed twice.