unicode encodings are turned offadding opens the file for both input and output ( you can both read and write to the same file objectoften in conjunction with seek operations to reposition in the fileboth of the first two arguments to open must be python strings an optional third argument can be used to control output buffering--passing zero means that output is unbuffered (it is transferred to the external file immediately on write method call)and additional arguments may be provided for special types of files ( an encoding for unicode text files in python xwe'll cover file fundamentals and explore some basic examples herebut we won' go into all file-processing mode optionsas usualconsult the python library manual for additional details using files once you make file object with openyou can call its methods to read from or write to the associated external file in all casesfile text takes the form of strings in python programsreading file returns its content in stringsand content is passed to the write methods as strings reading and writing methods come in multiple flavorstable - lists the most common here are few fundamental usage notesfile iterators are best for reading lines though the reading and writing methods in the table are commonkeep in mind that probably the best way to read lines from text file today is to not read the file at all--as we'll see in files also have an iterator that automatically reads one line at time in for looplist comprehensionor other iteration context content is stringsnot objects notice in table - that data read from file always comes back to your script as stringso you'll have to convert it to different type of python object if string is not what you need similarlyunlike with the print operationpython does not add any formatting and does not convert objects to strings automatically when you write data to file--you must send an already formatted string because of thisthe tools we have already met to convert objects to and from strings ( intfloatstrand the string formatting expression and methodcome in handy when dealing with files python also includes advanced standard library tools for handling generic object storage (the pickle module)for dealing with packed binary data in files (the struct module)and for processing special types of content such as jsonxmland csv text we'll see these at work later in this and bookbut python' manuals document them in full tuplesfilesand everything else