open read and close a file in 1 line of code

python readfile
1qazxsw2 picture 1qazxsw2 · Nov 4, 2011 · Viewed 180k times · Source

Now I use:

pageHeadSectionFile = open('pagehead.section.htm','r')
output = pageHeadSectionFile.read()
pageHeadSectionFile.close()

But to make the code look better, I can do:

output = open('pagehead.section.htm','r').read()

When using the above syntax, how do I close the file to free up system resources?

Answer

Tim Pietzcker picture Tim Pietzcker · Nov 4, 2011

You don't really have to close it - Python will do it automatically either during garbage collection or at program exit. But as @delnan noted, it's better practice to explicitly close it for various reasons.

So, what you can do to keep it short, simple and explicit:

with open('pagehead.section.htm','r') as f:
    output = f.read()

Now it's just two lines and pretty readable, I think.

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